Petru Frunze, PAS candidate for MP, said the statements and accusations made against him by two inhabitants of Puhoi village, Gheorghe Toma and Iacob Botezatu, are false. Contacted by IPN for detours, the candidate said he was never suspected of or punished for breaking public order and he wasn’t investigated. “These are electoral aberrations as they do not know to campaign in another way,” he stated.

According to Petru Frunze, the accusations made by Gheorghe Toma are related to an event of 2006, when, being at the discothèque together with other young people, Gheorghe Toma caused a conflict with another person, Gennady Bîrcă, and the conflict degenerated into a fight. Gheorghe Toma filed a complaint against Gennady Bîrcă. In 2019, a false news portal published materials showing that Petru Frunze beat Gheorghe Toma. When Petru Frunze asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate that publication, Gheorghe Toma was summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office and he made statements, confirming that in 2006 Petru Frunze didn’t have any connection with the fight and was only a guarantor based on a common note by which he undertook to pay several thousand lei for treatment in the name of Gennady Bîrcă. “That was a confirming note, not a statement by which I assume blame,” stated Petru Frunze.

After Gheorghe Toma held the first news conference not long ago, Petru Frunze said he filed a complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office and hopes that this will start a criminal case over false and contradictory statements.

As regards the accusations made by Iacob Botezatu, the candidate said that this in 2016-2020 was an ardent activist of the Plahotniuc regime and filed multiple complaints against Petru Frunze when he served as a mayor. He was sentenced to five years in jail for beating and tying a number of guards at a pig farm. Now he is accused in another case that that was opened because he, in 2020, kept a number of young people for a year at his farm, beating and not remunerating them. A part of these developed tuberculosis, but he refuses to cover the cost of their treatment. The criminal case was started over slavery and was remitted to court.

Petru Frunze noted he possesses information that the two men, being activists of the Party of Socialists, even if they denied this in the news conference, were assured by the party that if they discredit PAS in the current election campaign, the cases started against them will be dropped.

The accusation made by the two inhabitants of Puhoi village of Ialoveni district can be seen here .