The arrest of the suspended deputy chief of the Prosecutor General’s Office Ruslan Popov and the related procedural actions are unsubstantiated and unjustified, as is the unjust enrichment case that will not have an ending, lawyers Igor Hlopețchi and Oleg Spînu stated in a news conference at IPN.
The lawyers said “the execution of the administration of the Prosecutor General’s Office that refused to accept the political subordination continues”, while the arrest of their client was aimed at intimidating him so as to make him keep silent, the real reason being the news conference titled “View of the Deputy Prosecutors General” concerning the situation at the Prosecutor General’s Office and the criminal proceedings instituted against the Prosecutor General, which Ruslan Popov held one day earlier.
Invoking the way in which a journalistic investigation generated an attempt to subjugate the prosecutor’s office to political interests, as they consider, the lawyers said Mister Ruslan Popov became the victim of a frame-up.
Igor Hlopețchi and Oleg Spînu noted that unjust enrichment is not within the remit of the Prosecutor’s Office. Such evidence can be provided by the inspection bodies of the National Integrity Authority, the Tax Inspectorate, the Agency for Intervention and Payments in Agriculture following a report presented last year by the arrested prosecutor Ruslan Popov. The NIA carried out an inspection and decided to drop the case on September 30, 2021. The integrity inspector held that Ruslan Popov obtained his property legally and cannot be investigated for having a much larger property than the law allows. Therefore, in the absence of a document pointing to the violation of the legal regime of the property and personal interests, the acting Prosecutor General spotted an illegality based on investigative journalism reports.
According to the lawyers, the searches conducted at the suspect’s home and at his relatives, parents didn’t reveal something that would fuel the accusations made against Ruslan Popov. The suspended deputy chief prosecutor shouldn’t have been isolated as he cooperated with the authorities from the very first moments, making statements that occupied 12 pages. He has three children, two of whom are minors, and his remand in custody was aimed at intimidating him and at forcing him to vacate his post.
The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office is handling a case over unjust enrichment started against the suspended deputy prosecutor general Ruslan Popov. On October 9, Popov was remanded in custody for 72 hours.
