Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo is accusing President Maia Sandu of trying “systematically, demonstratively and without justification” to assume a position of superiority in relation to the Prosecution Service, in breach of the principle of separation of powers. During a press conference on Thursday, Stoianoglo also accused Sandu of demanding the start of criminal proceedings against the political opposition.
According to Alexandr Stoianoglo, in the eight months since Maia Sandu became President, the Prosecutor General’s Office has constantly tried to establish a dialogue based on mutual respect and a constructive relationship with the President, but efforts have been in vain. Throughout this period, the President was unwilling to learn more about the state of affairs within the Prosecutor General’s Office, about the problems it has been facing or how the President could help to improve the situation. All the collaboration and interest of the head of state was reduced to the issue of investigating individuals and individual cases. This was exactly how the meetings of the Supreme Security Council would take place, says Stoianoglo, as they would be convened for the sole purpose so that the general prosecutor could report on high-profile cases and individual cases.
The Prosecutor General says that his attempts to explain that the examination of criminal cases does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Security Council and that this is an interference in criminal prosecution, which is prohibited by law, were brutally objected to with one single argument: incompetence and inefficiency on the part of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The apex of the collaboration between the Prosecutor General’s Office and the President was reached at the last meeting of the CSS, says Alexandr Stoianoglo, which was organized overnight and to which the leaders of the specialized prosecutor’s offices were also invited. He says that, in his entire career as a prosecutor, it is the first time that a head of state has called the heads of specialized prosecutors to report. Only the oligarch Plahotniuc would do such a thing, fumed Stoianoglo, According to the law, the Prosecution Service can be represented at the CSS only by one of its leaders.
Alexandr Stoianoglo also says that during that meeting, the President presented a list of people, including representatives of the current political opposition, urging the Prosecutor General’s Office to prosecute them. Stoianoglo called on the President’s Office to publish not only the decisions of the Supreme Security Council, including those of August 10, but also the annexes with the names of those who the government wants prosecuted.
In a reaction on his Facebook page, President Maia Sandu said the statements of the General Prosecutor are false and irresponsible. At the CSS meeting on August 10, it was discussed that members of two criminal groups involved in major corruption cases were leaving the country unhindered, and the prosecutors were doing nothing to stop them or bring them back to Moldova to be held accountable. There was no discussion of cases against the opposition, insists Sandu. According to the President, before making statements, Alexandr Stoianoglo should have consulted the minutes of that meeting, at which he did not bother to appear.
The President says that he asked the Prosecutor General to enforce the law and investigate, above all, cases of grand corruption. Each time, Alexandr Stoianoglo would come up with justifications for the lack of results. In Maia Sandu’s opinon, by making today’s statements, the current Prosecutor General is siding with criminals, becoming both an instrument and an accomplice and giving out his fear of the actions undertaken by the new government to clean the system. Maia Sandu says that neither Alexandr Stoianoglo nor the corrupt people he is trying to protect will be able to stop the most important reform the country needs - cleansing the judiciary and the prosecution service from the influence of corrupt groups.
