The Superior Council of Prosecutors (CSP) announces that the phase of submission of applications to the competition for the selection of the candidate for the position of Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) has ended.

Thus, according to the CSP, former prosecutor Andrei Mațco, interim head of the General Directorate of Criminal Prosecution within the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA), Eugen Rurac and Sergiu Russu, interim head of the PCCOCS, are aspiring for the post of chief prosecutor.

Sergiu Russu is currently acting head of the PCCOCS, Chief Prosecutor of the Anti-Trafficking in Human Beings Section of the General Prosecutor’s Office.

In 2009, Russu served as deputy prosecutor in the Dubasari Prosecutor’s Office, and in April 2015 – chief prosecutor in the same prosecutor’s office.

According to the statement of assets and personal interests for the year 2021, Sergiu Russu collected from the Prosecutor General’s Office a gross annual salary of about 363 thousand lei, or about 30 thousand lei.

Eugen Rurac, a former anti-corruption prosecutor, currently holds the position of acting head of the General Prosecution Directorate within the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA).

Rurac was hired at the Intelligence and Security Service in September 2021. He left the prosecutor’s office in January 2020, when he resigned without giving reasons.

Eugeniu Rurac handled several high-profile cases, including the case of Judge Ion Druță, who was the president of the CCSJ, the “Metalferos” case, in which damages of over 200 million lei were established. It was also Rurac who finally dropped the charge against the current president of the Constitutional Court, Domnica Manole, who was on trial for knowingly passing an illegal judgment. Eugeniu Rurac also handled the criminal case against former MP Chiril Lucinschi, convicted by the first instance in the bank fraud case.

In September 2022, ZdG wrote that Rurac was caught in several photos published in the press and Telegram channels driving a Mercedes S 400 4 Matic. Asked by ZdG at the time, Eugeniu Rurac said that the car did not belong to him, but to his brother, from whom he borrowed it for a month while his car was being repaired.

Lawyer Andrei Mațco previously held the position of deputy head of the Judicial and General Investigations Section in the Chisinau Prosecutor’s Office. He handled the Plugaru case.

On November 11, 2022, the CSP announced a competition to select a candidate for the position of chief prosecutor of the PCCOCS, with a deadline for submitting competition applications of January 10, 2023. In the next stage of the candidate pre-selection competition, a special committee established by the CSPwill be responsible for two stages: the competition of the submitted files and the interview test.