Court obliges pro-Russian politician to pay slander damages to political detainee

The Rascani court from Chisinau obliges Chisinau pro-Russian councilor Valery Climenco to pay 10,000 lei to former political detainee Andrei Ivantoc as damages for slander. The Chisinau councilor will have to deny publicly his slanderous statements. The message was announced Friday at a news conference by Ivantoc's barrister, Stefan Burlaca, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the lawyer, Valery Climenco would have groundlessly accused the members of the so-called “Ilascu group” that they would have allegedly killed children and pregnant women during the Nistru war of 1992. The accusations were brought on 11 October, 2007, at a sitting of the Chisinau Municipal Council, as they were discussing a bill to grant the Ilascu group members the title of citizens of honor of Chisinau, Stefan Burlaca said. The executive manager of the Helsinki Committee from Moldova, Teo Carnat, has specified the trial lasted for more than a year because Valery Climenco did not show up to argue his position. Valery Climenco has told Info-Prim Neo he is not going to pay the damages to Ivantoc and learnt of the writ only in the morning of 26 Sept. Climenco voices confusion why only one member of the Ilascu group felt affected. “If all the other have had no reaction, it means they are actually criminals, what was proven in press articles in 1992,” Climenco stated. According to the Helsinki Committee, the legal term for appealing the writ has expired. If Climenco does not obey the writ, his property may be sequestered. The court issued the decision on July 8, 2008 and was enacted on July 28, and since then Valery Climenco could have appealed it.