Cross-examination in Cubreacov case
The deputy president of the Christian-Democratic People’s Party (PPCD,) MP Vlad Cubreacov, met, on Tuesday, March 11, with Ion Neagu and Sergiu Burca, former members of the party, in a cross-examination at the Chisinau prosecutor’s office. The three have stated for Info-Prim Neo the procedure was a purely technical one, they having to answer the prosecutor’s questions, having the possibility of posing questions to one another. The prosecutor’s office is investigating the version that MP Vlad Cubreacov’s kidnapping in 2002 would allegedly have been staged by the PPCD leadership.
Vlad Cubreacov has said, by phone, he has learnt nothing new from the statements of his former party fellow members. The MP says he has convinced himself, once again, it was a politically motivated slander. “It is known I was one of the leaders of the protests in 2002. Being an uncomfortable political figure, resuming and exploiting this case in media pursue a clearly political and electoral purpose, the method being to denigrate my person and the PPCD,” said the PPCD deputy president.
Ion Neagu has said Cubreacov accused him of spying for another state, at the examination. “Cubreacov repeats the version invented by (his) party a couple of months ago, that I would have links with the Russian Secret Services (FSB) and with Valeriu Pasat,” stated Ion Neagu.
He has declared he regrets that Vlad Cubreacov does not get out of the role that PPCD leader Iurie Rosca reserved for him. Neagu says he considers Cubreacov to be a victim and sympathizes with him for this situation. According to Neagu, the PPCD deputy president will get free from this burden, only when he tells the truth.
In his turn, Sergiu Burca has told Info-Prim Neo that, at the cross-examination, he has confirmed what he had testified in August 2007. “I decided to tell the truth because of respect for the law, but also for Vlad Cubreacov – the one I once knew, hoping thus he will regain his verticality, his personality doubled by the burden of this non-confessed fact,” Sergiu Burca stated.
Burca says he was not told of a possible new cross-examination in the future with Vlad Cubreacov or other PPCD representatives. Yet Ion Neagu was told he could have a new confrontation next Tuesday with the PPCD president, Iurie Rosca.
After the last summer’s statements of those two former PPCD key-members, Sergiu Burca and Ion Neagu, that Cubreacov’s disappearance was staged, general prosecutor Valeriu Gurbulea stated, on December 2007 on the Parliament’s floor, that the penal inquest was proceeding, but then there were not enough evidence to allow a clear and prompt conclusion, to be able to confirm or deny the version put up by the two.
Cubreacov vanished on March 21, 2002, and was found near the village of Ustia, close to the Transnistrian region, two months later. More statements were made on the verge of the case. The PPCD leaders Iurie Rosca and Vlad Cubreacov assert the Russian secret services would stand behind the infractions. They were backed up by the leader of a Transnistrian NGO, who later stated the kidnapping was organized by the former defense minister Valeriu Pasat, as the Russian services were involved. The Tiraspol authorities maintained several years ago they had evidence the action would have allegedly been initiated by President Vladimir Voronin.