Moldovan top court turns down appeal by lawyers of former Moldovan PM on prosecution at large

Chisinau, 10 March /MOLDPRES/ - The Chisinau-based Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by lawyers of the former prime minister, Vlad Filat, on a ruling of the Buiucani district court of Chisinau concerning Filat’s prosecution under arrest. The prosecutor handling the case, Adriana Betisor, made statements to this effect today.

According to Betisor, judges described the appeal by Vlad Filat’s lawyer as groundless. “We considered the appeal of the defence on the measure of preventive  arrest for 30 days. The magistrates of the Court of Appeal turned down the appeal as groundless. We are to continue the examination of the file,” Betisor noted.  

For his part, Filat’s lawyer Igor Popa said the judges had not taken into account the arguments of the defence and neither the decision by the Constitutional Court (CC). “The Court of Appeal judges did not take into consideration our arguments and neither the CC ruling. Under the conclusion of the Buiucani court, the magistrates extended the arrest under a norm that was declared unconstitutional,” Popa said.    

According to the decision by the Constitutional Court from 23 February 2016, a person cannot be under preventive arrest for more than 30 days within one warrant and 12 months in all.

Vlad Filat was detained on 15 October 2015, under a warrant issued by the National Anticorruption Centre, after the parliament had ruled to strip him of immunity.  

On 18 October, the Buiucani district court of Chisinau issued a preventive arrest warrant against the former prime minister for 30 days. On 11 November and afterwards on 10 December, the judges prolonged the arrest of the MP by another 30 days. On 5 January, the Buiucani district court extended the arrest warrant against Vlad Filat by 90 more days.

(Reporter P. Beregoi, editor M. Jantovan)