Matasaru not touched by Voronin's amnesty. ECHR steps in

Businessman Anatol Matasaru remains under arrest, although President Vladimir Voronin urged the Moldovan judiciary to free the people detained after the April 7 protests. His lawyer, Victor Pantiru, called to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which after three days asked the Moldovan government for answers about Anatol Matasaru's detention. Barrister Victor Pantiru told a news conference hosted by Info-Prim Neo, Friday, April 24, the Government was to provide an answer till June 4. According to Victor Pantiru, policemen ask Matasaru to sign documents that he allegedly received money from opposition parties and from journalist Lorena Bogza to organize the April 7 protests. Moreover, the police wants Matasaru to disclose his e-mail passwords. He is charged with organizing and participating in mass disorders. When asked about evidence to confirm in the ECHR that Anatol Matasaru was subjected to ill-treatment, barrister Pantiru has stated: “An unquestionable testimony is the video recording in which Mr. Matasaru is stating what happens to him in the Police General Commissariat. Since Mr. Matasaru was not brought to the court on April 17, I asked the court to order his being taken to a hospital to to examine his body lesions.” The Appellate Court indeed ordered the police to allow the detainee to be checked up and it happened indeed shortly. But, in response to the doctors' strong recommendation to hospitalize A. Matasaru urgently, the police took him back to Penitentiary 13. Matasaru's 30-day preventive arrest expires on May 8. Anatol Matasaru was filmed by televisions how he participated in the April 7 demonstrations, as he is known as a harsh critic of the law-enforcing bodies. Last winter he dressed a donkey in police clothes and a pig in prosecutor's clothes, and peacefully protested with them in front of those two institutions. “I think the police is using this occasion to avenge on Mr. Matasaru,” lawyer Pantiru said. Anatol Matasaru was arrested in the entrance into the block he lives in on April 8 and taken to the police. According to the lawyer, his arrest was done by severely breaking the procedure, by people dressed in civilian clothes, who did not hesitate to fully use physical force. Anatol Matasaru was beaten up by the police, says Pantiru.