Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, who is due to travel to Romania from 28 January to 5 February to accompany his underage son for rehabilitation treatment, claims that prosecutors have “raided and questioned the doctors who recommended the treatment”. Contacted by ZdG, the press service of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said it was currently “unable to provide a response”. The prosecutor in the case, Petru Iarmaliuc, also said that the institution would come up with a press release later.

“At the direction of Maia Sandu and Veronica Dragalin, yesterday, January 25, prosecutors descended with interrogation and collection of records to the doctors who prescribed treatment to my son. For hours they terrorized them, pressured them and threatened them with files and polygraph tests. They left behind tears of doctors and other medical professionals, scared of the abusive behavior of prosecutors (…),” Igor Dodon wrote on social media.

On Thursday, 19 January, former President Igor Dodon, who is accused of committing the crime of passive bribery, organising and accepting political party funding from a “criminal organisation”, was allowed to leave the country. The Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) granted the former head of state’s request to leave for Romania. The information was confirmed to ZdG by anti-corruption prosecutor Petru Iarmaliuc.

“At the court hearing, a request was submitted requesting permission for Igor Dodon to leave the territory of the Republic of Moldova for the period January 28-February 5 in order to accompany his minor son, together with his wife – who is also a defendant of the PA, in order to receive certain treatment services in Romania (…) Annexed to the request were submitted some documents, copies, medical extracts indicating the state of health of the defendant Igor Dodon and his minor child. I have indicated that these copies and documents are not sufficient and it is necessary to verify the authenticity and veracity of the data in these documents by hearing the person who prepared them. The doctor should appear in court and say why he cannot undergo treatment in Moldova. It says “rehabilitation”, not that the person’s health is serious. So there are no exceptional personal circumstances of the defendant.

(…) He may interact with certain persons who are targeted in the case, or he may take other actions that could impede the proper conduct of the criminal proceedings. Even now, they have again filed a request for the recusal of the panel. We already have six requests for recusal, i.e. six court hearings have not been held on the grounds of recusal of the judges, and four times they have requested recusal of the prosecutor,” the prosecutor said at the time.

On Monday, 6 January, the judges of the CSJ granted the prosecutor’s request to extend the term of the preventive measure – an order not to leave the country for another 60 days – against Igor Dodon.

At the same time, the request submitted by Igor Dodon’s lawyers to challenge the panel of judges examining the case was rejected as unfounded, the press service of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office told Ziarul de Gardă.

Igor Dodon was released from house arrest by a decision of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) on 18 November. The former head of state was then placed under judicial control for 60 days and banned from leaving the country.

In the so-called “kuliok” case, the former president of Moldova is accused of having demanded almost one million dollars from Vladimir Plahotniuc and Sergei Yaralov in order to negotiate with the Russian Federation, and in the “Energocom” case, the former president is accused of exceeding his official duties.

Igor Dodon was detained on 24 May after anti-corruption prosecutors carried out ten raids for more than ten hours at several locations owned by Dodon and his relatives.

Dodon is the first head of state to be tried for a crime committed while in office. For this reason, the case was referred directly to the CSJ, which by law is competent to try criminal cases involving offences committed by a head of state at first instance.

The criminal prosecution in the case generically called “kuliok” was resumed on 18 May 2022, one day after the Chisinau CA overturned the entire decision of the Chisinau Court, Ciocana sector, on maintaining the order of non-prosecution against the former President of Moldova, issued earlier. The case is based on a video footage of a meeting between Igor Dodon, Vladimir Plahotniuc and Serghei Iaralov in June 2019, in which the PDM leader is seen giving Dodon a black bag in which it was speculated there was money. In that recording, Igor Dodon tells Plahotniuc not to “walk around with his asses” and to pass the bag to Cornel (supposedly Corneliu Furculita, editor’s note), because he was going to pay certain salaries. Plahotniuc then told Iaralov to give the money to Costea (supposedly Constantin Botnari, editor’s note) to pass on to Cornel.

The video footage, published by former MP Iurie Renita, is a continuation of the video recording of the meeting of the three in June 2019, when Dodon said he receives monthly money from the Russian Federation to finance the PSRM. Later, Dodon publicly stated that he had played a role in those discussions, with the aim of ousting Plahotniuc from government.

Igor Dodon was suspected of illicit enrichment, passive bribery, accepting the financing of the political party by a criminal organisation and treason against the Motherland.