Svetlana Chifa's case is political, AMN

The leadership of the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) Party considers that Svetlana Chifa, the head of the Chisinau department for children's rights protection and also an AMN member, has been arrested abusively. They believe her arrest is a sign of the beginning of the election campaign and promise to go as far as to the European Court of Human Rights if the Moldovan judges put their fellow party member in jail, Info-Prim Neo reports. “This is definitely a political case, initiated by the order of the country's leadership as election day draws closer”, said AMN's MP Ion Plesca at a news conference on Thursday. According to him, the law was violated twice by the Prosecutor General's Office, which took Chifa in custody. First, because there was no legal ground to put her under arrest. Second, because they ignored a valid and final judgment delivered by the Chisinau Court of Appeals, which quashed the case against Chifa, observing that there gad not been criminal conduct in her actions. Gheorghe Susarenco, another AMN deputy and a former constitutional judge, said the arrest is part of a well-devised plan of the government. “On the one hand, Iurie Rosca manipulates in different ways the public opinion, slandering the AMN leaders (Svetlana Chifa is the president of the AMN's women's wing). But on the other hand, Vladimir Voronin, by employing the entire machinery that he has subordinated – the police, the Security and Information System, the judiciary – is claiming to be bringing the country to order”, said the MP. “If Svetlana Chifa is condemned, her case will be remitted to the European Court of Human Rights”, promised Susarenco. Last evening Svetlana Chifa was arrested for a period of 72 hours on suspicion of being involved in abusive adoptions.