Prosecutors have initiated criminal proceedings in the case of the seven Turkish citizens declared undesirable and expelled from Moldova in September 2018. The charges pursued include “abuse of power” by officers of the Migration and Asylum Bureau, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Security and Intelligence Service.

The Prosecutor General’s Office said in a press release that the formal grounds for pursing the case include the results of the internal investigation carried out by the Anticorruption and Internal Protection Service of the Ministry of the Interior, in addition to the ECHR ruling in this respect.

The European Court of Human Rights found that Moldova violated the rights of the Turkish citizens who were expelled in September 2018. The ECHR ordered the payment of 25,000euros to each applicant in respect of non-pecuniary damages. According to the Court's conclusions, the applicants' deprivation of liberty in September 2018 was neither legal nor necessary. At the same time, the deprivation of liberty of the applicants in this way constituted an illegal transfer of the persons from the territory of Moldova to Turkey, which omitted all the guarantees offered by the national and international law.

Five of the seven Turkish citizens expelled last year from Moldova, on Ankara’s request, have already been convicted. Two days ago, one of them received 12 years in prison.