Ion Diacov, the prosecutor of Chisinau municipality, said that not only the prosecutors are to blame for the situation in the Moldovan justice sector as not only some of the prosecutors are corrupt, but also some of the judges are, and the reform in justice can be done not by adopting a law on the prosecution service, but rather by eliminating the corrupt people from the system and by keeping only the upright persons who do their job honestly. In a news conference at IPN, the prosecutor warned the authorities that if they don’t do the reform in the justice sector, this reform will most probably be implemented under the pressure exerted by the people protesting in the Great National Assembly Square of Chisinau.

Explaining his affirmations about corruption among judges, Ion Diacov said that on September 23 the judges of the Appeals Court released from custody the leader of a criminal group that smuggled hashish from Spain to Russia through Moldova. The judges who placed this under house arrest are experienced and couldn’t have made a mistake as they knew that the accused wasn’t a citizen of Moldova and didn’t have the domicile in Moldova. He was thus allowed to flee the country. There are reasonable suspicions that the decision was taken illegally, as a result of influence exerted on the judges. Thus, the prosecutor general was asked to institute legal proceedings.

The prosecutor of Chisinau municipality said his inferiors are discouraged by such acts of the judges as the work they do during many years is thus ineffective. The aforementioned group had been monitored for two years. The corrupt persons must be eliminated from the legal system, while the composition of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office should be radically changed.

Ion Diacov considers the protesters’ demand that the prosecutor general should resign need to be satisfied as this, from his viewpoint and judging by the statements made by the prosecutor general, didn’t fulfill his duties, including in preventing and investigating the stealing of the €1 billion from the financial-banking system of the country.

The prosecutor also commented on the decision of Head of Parliament Andrian Candu to invite a Romanian prosecutor who worked at the National Anticorruption Directorate, saying all the statements about this prosecutor, who is now a pensioner, are purely political in character, while the Moldovan legislation bans a foreign prosecutor from accessing information about the criminal cases started in the country, not speaking about giving instructions. If somebody gives at least one page from a case to this former prosecutor, this person will be liable to prosecution. The former Romanian prosecutor who came to Moldova can only stage seminars to share her own experience.