Young man was sent to prison at Shevchuk’s order, Promo-LEX

A 22-year-old man from Chisinau Alexandru Coliban was sentenced by the unconstitutional Transnistrian authorities to two years and a half in jail. In a news conference on January 14, the representative of Promo-LEX Association Pavel Postica and relatives of the young man said Alexandru Coliban was arrested by order of the Transnistrian leader Yevgeny Shevchuk, being a political detainee, Info-Prim Neo reports. The man’s mother Svetlana Coliban related that Alexandru and a number of colleagues of his distributed election posters before the so-called presidential elections in Transnistria against Yevgeny Shevchuk. In October, some of his colleagues were arrested by the unconstitutional authorities. The young man left for Grigoriopol to support his colleagues, but was handcuffed too, being accused of calumny and hindering of the exercise of the electoral right or of the work of the electoral bodies following the distribution of the posters. Svetlana Coliban said that in October 2011, Alexandru was held under arrest for three days and was obliged to make statements against the organizer of the campaign – Ukrainian citizen Dumitru Gasanenko. The man was forced to say that he recruited young people for disseminating electoral propaganda. Three days later, the man and his colleagues were set free and obliged to present themselves at the Transnistrian law enforcement bodies when they are called. But Alexandru returned to Chisinau. On June 9, 2012 he went to Transnistria to a party and was arrested at the checkpoint set up at the entrance to Bender. On September 9, he was sentenced to imprisonment. Alexandru’s brother Andrei Coliban said that last February Dumitru Gasanenko was sentenced to three years in prison, but was released in a month owing to the involvement of representatives of Russia. Pavel Postica said that an application from the ‘injured side’ was attached to the materials of the case, whereby it is demanded harshly punishing Alexandru Coliban by imprisoning him for about four years. Promo-LEX and Alexandru’s relatives call on the authorities of Moldova and Russia and on the organizations involved in the Transnistrian conflict settlement talks in the 5+2 format to take measures and immediately and unconditionally set free Alexandru Coliban and to examine him as he is held in inhuman and degrading conditions and his state of health has worsened. Alexandru Coliban’s case will be also sent to the ECHR.