Moldovan prosecutor general's office provides new details on attempt of murder of Russian businessman

Chisinau, 18 October /MOLDPRES/ - Two persons have been detained for an attempt of influencing Vitalie Proca, the author of an attempt of murder of Russian businessman German Gorbuntsov. Prosecutor Vitalie Busuioc made statements to this effect at a news conference today.    

According to Busuioc, one of the suspects would have liked to influence Vitalie Proca, detained in a penitentiary in Romania, for giving false statements on the attempt of murder of German Gorbuntsov. “The suspect left for Romania, in the penitentiary where Vitalie Proca serves his term, visited him and handed him a recorder for Proca to be able to record statements. Subsequently, the intermediary came back to Romania and left for Moscow, where he met the true beneficiary of these false statements, the one who wanted to distort the sense of the inquiry in the case of Gorbuntsov,” Vitalie Busuioc said.        

The prosecutor noted that one of the intermediaries would have received a sum of 100,000 euros for the concerned deed, with a part of the money used to buy certain goods, and another part was transmitted to Proca’s family. “According to the evidence managed, more exactly – to the recordings of the phone conversations, raised documents, as well as to pictures, competent authorities established that this sum represented an advance of an overall sum of 600,000 euros, negotiated between these persons. The suspects recognize these deeds,” Busuioc said.    

“We abstain from divulging the name of the true beneficiary, as we do not want to be charged with the violation of the presumption of innocence. We are to analyze the evidence, we will subsequently provide details. At the same time, information was spread in the media about a trip of a group of prosecutors to the United Kingdom. I confirm this. This was an official visit. Some of the members of the group of representatives of law-enforcers, who went to the Great Britain, met the group of English detectives who investigate the Gorbuntsov case in London. Our inquirers also had a discussion with Mr. Gorbuntsov,” prosecutor Valeriu Bodean said.     

The persons detained for the attempt of influencing Vitalie Proca run the risk of being sentenced to 15-20 years of imprisonment, depending on the involvement of each of them.   

On 20 March 2012, businessman German Gorbuntsov was the target of an attack in London. Even if the businessman was hit by eight bullets, he managed to survive.      

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Raileanu)