Two Chisinau men previously given suspended sentences in two separate rape cases got real prison sentences following appeals by the prosecutors.
In the first case, the Prosecutor General’s Office recalls, in February 2017 a 31-year-old man from the suburban commune of Trușeni had lured a woman looking for a place to spend the night. He held the 42-year-old woman captive and beat and raped her for two days before she was able to escape while her captor was sleeping. The Chisinau Court of Appeals has considered the original suspended sentence disproportionate and has sentenced the man to five years and six months behind bars.
In the second case, a 40-year-old man forced a 19-year-old woman he had just met into his car and took her into a forest where he raped her. The woman managed to send GPS coordinates to her boyfriend, enabling the police to catch the assaulter. After the prosecutors appealed the initial sentence, the man finally got a real prison term, of three years, in addition to being ordered to pay 32,000 lei damages and 10,500 lei in court expenses.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, 611 sex crimes were reported last year in Moldova, as 115 offenders were convicted and given real prison terms. At present, 1,189 inmates are serving prison terms for sex crimes, or one in five inmates of the total prison population.