Young woman adopted in U.S. says Svetlana Chifa not guilty

Elena Barlow (Barunova), who was adopted four years ago by a family from the United States, returned to Moldova to argue in support of Svetlana Chifa, the head of the Chisinau Child’s Rights Protection Division, who is accused by prosecutors of facilitating her illegal adoption. At a news conference held at Info-Prim Neo on Wednesday, the 20-year-old woman said that she is ready to give testimony in favor of Svetlana Chifa. She said she cried with joy when she was adopted in 2005. She had lived for six years in a Chisinau boarding school after he mother had died in 1999, while her father, who is now in Russia, disappeared from her life after divorcing her mother in 1997. “Any child in a children’s home will tell you that most of all they want a family, care and love,” Elena said. “After spending a month’s vacation in the United States, I practically fell in love with the host family and they wanted very much to adopt me,” Elena said. The young woman also said that Svetlana Chifa only contributed to her happiness and helped her enjoy new opportunities that appeared after she went to live abroad. “I studied for three years at the college. Now I want to study medicine. When I become a doctor, I will return to Moldova to help the children from boarding schools and even adopt a child,” Elena said. The woman now lives in Arizona together with her adoptive parents, who adopted another girl from the same boarding school. The head of the Chisinau Child’s Rights Protection Division is accused of exceeding her power when signing a note on the basis of which the Chisinau Court of Appeals decided to allow that the girl be adopted. The lawyer for Svetlana Chifa, Viorel Savva, said that the note was consultative and was issued at the request of the Court of Appeals. “The note is neither negative nor positive. It only includes information about the state of the child. The court could have ignored it,” Savva said. Svetlana Chifa said that the legal case instituted against her is political. “It is a settling of accounts because I am a member of an Opposition party,” said Chifa, who is also the president of the Chisinau Women’s Organization of the Moldova Noastra Alliance and candidate for MP on behalf of this party. Earlier, Moldova’s Prosecutor General Valeriu Gurbulea denied this. In January, Svetlana Chifa had been under arrest for 72 hours and than put under house arrest for 30 days. When the term expired, the Court of Centru Distrct obliged her to promise in written form she would not leave the country. The trial has been adjourned until April 5.