Grigore Furdui called ZdG outraged that, he says, by falsifying evidence and mishandling his case, he risks going to prison instead of the perpetrator who, two years ago, committed a fatal road accident. This is the story of a case with many ambiguities, told by the man himself.

On the morning of January 3, 2020, at 07:02, driving my VW Golf, I was driving from the village of Dorotcaia, where I live, to Sangera, where I work as a tanker driver. To reach my destination, I drive through several villages. I pass through the village of Cimiseni, Criuleni, and Mereni, Anenii Noi. It was very early in the morning and it was dark. I was going at a speed of about 50 km/hour. As I was about to enter the village of Mereni, from the opposite direction, a car appeared in my path and deliberately blinded me with its high-beam light. As soon as the oncoming car crossed the road ahead, I saw a bag-shaped object which I ran over, not having the possibility to brake, and this was recorded on the video recorder. After a few metres I stopped, as the object looked suspicious to me. I turned the steering wheel and drove to the spot. I turned the lights on the car and saw that there was a dead body at the bottom, and next to it – a piece of black plastic in the shape of a crescent. I also saw brake marks and a discarded club.

Then I understood that the car that had blinded me was intended to hide the collision, having been framed for a crime. In order not to become a victim of this race, I panicked and left the scene of the accident.

At 7.20, the ambulance arrived, having been called by one of the drivers crossing that road. The doctor from the rescue service, checking the body, found that it was that of an old woman, on whose body lividity had already formed (purple spots that appear on the skin of the corpse 1.5 to 2 hours after death). So, the person died around 6.00 am, not later. This fact is recorded on the Request Form, prepared by the doctor. Later the same day, on 3 January 2020, the police interviewed the ambulance doctor, who stated that the victim had been dead “for an hour”.

Several witnesses were also heard, including V.P., whose household is on the side of the road where the accident occurred. He said that he had been outside earlier that morning, just before 7.00, when he noticed a car stopped at the scene of the accident. From that spot, he could hear conversations between two men. The two men were frightened and talking in a high-pitched voice. Shortly after, they got into the car. They closed the doors and, with the lights off, left the scene.

On February 12, 2020, more than a month after that accident, I was detained by the police and placed in Chisinau Penitentiary No.13. Initially I was arrested for 30 days, after which the arrest warrant was extended for another 30 days, after which I was placed under house arrest for another 30 days.

During this time, the state-appointed lawyer from Anenii Noi asked me for 3000 euros to “agree” with the prosecutor to release me from criminal liability. I refused to pay the bribe, insisting and arguing that I am not guilty and that I owe no one the 3000 euros demanded by the state lawyer.

During the court hearings, a forensic expert was appointed, where the expert found that lividity of the corpse was formed more than an hour after the person’s death. Thus, it appears that the victim had been struck at least one hour before the time of the observation of lividity by the ambulance doctors (the time of arrival of the ambulance was 7.20-7.30). A simple calculation shows that the person was hit at 6.20-6.30 or even earlier.

At one of the court hearings, video footage from the Mereni Town Hall cameras was viewed, one of the cameras being mounted towards the scene of the road accident.

During the viewing, it was clear that the video files were running at an increased speed, with some video footage of the scene where the old woman had been hit inexplicably cut off. Together with my new lawyer, Veaceslav Ropot, we realised that it was specifically the video footage of the cars that had crossed the victim until I arrived there that had been cut out. The one who had access to this evidence is the prosecution officer.

When I found that the evidence had been tampered with, I filed a criminal complaint against the prosecuting officer, seeking to hold him criminally liable on three counts: knowingly holding an innocent person criminally liable, knowingly unlawfully detaining a person and tampering with evidence. As a result, criminal proceedings were initiated.

ZdG approached the prosecution officer on the case, Diana Neguriță, who handled the evidence included in the file. Diana Neguriță confirmed that Furdui and his lawyer have filed a criminal complaint, alleging falsification of video evidence, recorded at the scene of the accident, but, she says, “I did not falsify anything. As soon as I received the evidence, I included it”. Asked where exactly she got the evidence, the prosecuting officer refused to say.

We called in a professional who showed us that if we slow down the file’s high speed, we see the shadow of a truck. We later found out that the truck was driven by a former policeman, now in Germany. We submitted a request to the police, asking them to investigate the crossing of this lorry at the scene of the road accident and to interview the driver. It is true that a criminal case has been opened in this case, but the prosecutors are trying to close it by any means possible.

Serghei Podrez, the prosecutor of the Anenii-Noi prosecutor’s office, who handled the criminal case, claims that “the allegations about the falsification of evidence in the criminal case are in fact an attempt to evade criminal liability of the convicted person”. It notes that a criminal case on possible forgery is currently pending. According to the prosecutor, the court examined the evidence in full and found the person guilty of committing the crime in question, and the Chisinau Court of Appeal will decide on the legality or illegality of the conviction and will examine the case on appeal.

During the examination of the case, another witness was identified, a person who was a security guard on the morning of the road accident. He stated that at 6.30 a.m. he had seen a car stopped at the scene of the road accident. He had also observed two people who suddenly closed the doors and, with their headlights off, left the scene of the accident.

In order to investigate which type of car the crescent-shaped piece of plastic found at the scene belonged to, my lawyer and I asked for an expert opinion. I believe that the magistrate dismissed our request without grounds. Moreover, in the court hearing, when investigating this piece of plastic, the prosecutor asked the court to remove this piece of evidence from the list of offences, thus demonstrating that it would be in someone’s interest to get rid of this evidence which directly proves my innocence.

From the judgment delivered by the Anenii Noi Court on 30 August 2022, we learn that the court rejected, as unfounded, “the allegations of the defence counsel and the defendant made during the court session, according to which the death of the person was not due to the actions of the defendant, but to the actions of other persons not identified by the prosecution”. Similarly, the court rejected the testimony of the emergency doctor and witnesses that the accident occurred some hours earlier than the time at which the defendant Furdui had crossed that stretch of road.

My innocence, moreover, is proven by eyewitnesses who saw the unidentified vehicle with two people on board, by the ambulance doctor, by the body of the vehicle that committed the accident, by the conclusions of the forensic expert who found that the person died an hour before the arrival of the doctors. Although it is clear from all these arguments that I, Grigore Furdui, am not the one who caused the death of the person, on 30 August 2022 I was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment with the cancellation of the right to drive the means of transport. What should I say about justice today to the three members of my family, whose sole breadwinner I am?