The Penal Board of the Chisinau Court of Appeals sentenced two police officers to five year in prison each for using torture against a minor in April 2009, IPN reports.

According to a communiqué from the Prosecutor General’s Office, on April 10, 2009, two officers of the Interior Ministry’s Operative Services Department approached a minor near the Government Building and, without any reason, made him get into the police car and took him close to the Tractor Plant. While going in the car, the policemen covered the minor’s face in order to make him confess that he took part in the April 7 mass disorder and punched him until he fainted.

Afterward, the police officers took him to the police commissariat of Buiucani district, where they said that the minor took part in the public disorder. But the commissariat’s employees refused to accept him. Thus, the two took the minor to an area near the Central Military Clinical Hospital in Buiucani and left him to lie unconscious in the street.

The minor suffered brain injury, a closed fracture of the left thigh, contusion of the soft tissues of the face and head, and other injuries.

By the decision of the Buiucani court of December 27, 2011, the police officers were acquitted. The prosecutors appealed the decision to a higher court and the case was retried by another panel of judges.

The Chisinau Court of Appeals’ sentence can be appealed.