The wife of socialist municipal councillor Dinari Cojocaru, an employee of IMSP Buiucani Territorial Medical Association, is the person who, according to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), “asked” another doctor to sign the document confirming the need for Igor Dodon to travel abroad for post Covid-19 rehabilitation treatment for one of the former president’s sons.

Asked by Ziarul de Gardă, Dinari Cojocaru confirmed that it was his wife and claimed that prosecutors “put pressure” on her and a colleague to “admit taking bribes” to sign the certificate, on the basis of which judges allowed Igor Dodon to leave the country, even though he was banned from leaving Moldova.

“The child (Igor Dodon, editor’s note) endured Covid, he was given a certificate, form 27 E, recommending that he go to a sanatorium to do pool and breathing exercises. I give such certificates to every patient I examine, but I don’t recommend where to buy the preparations, which pharmacy to go to, which sanatorium. (…) A recommendation was given for Mr. Dodon’s child to go to rehabilitation. (…) This is my wife’s job, to give certificates. It is the job of any doctor. If a doctor doesn’t get better, he asks another one. (…) On the 23rd the prosecutors went to my wife’s colleague, (they asked her, editor’s note) why she wrote such recommendations to the child. The lady said that the child was consulted by my wife, because we are next door, we live next door to each other. (…) When the child (Igor Dodon’s, ed.) got Covid, my wife was phoned. Everything is recorded.

Recently, the child had an exacerbation of respiratory pathology and my wife gave them recommendations. The wife fulfilled the act, presented it to the doctor, asked if the doctor has no discrepancies. The doctor spoke with the child’s mother by phone and form E 27 was given with the stamp of the sector doctor. (…) The other day, the family (Dodon, editor’s note) wrote a request to pass it back to my wife. (…) The prosecutors are now pressuring both the doctor cela and my wife that “you admit that you took bribes”. For form 27 bribe? Which is given left and right? (…) They scared my wife that if she doesn’t say that she took bribes or that she was co-interested on Dodon’s behalf, they will file criminal charges. They called the second doctor at 10pm and asked him ‘if he remembered anything’, that if he remembers ‘there is already another file’,” said municipal councillor Dinari Cojocaru, who is also the godson-in-law of Alexandru Dodon, Igor Dodon’s brother.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) announced on 26 January that it had filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), requesting the replacement of the measure of the obligation not to leave the country with house arrest for Igor Dodon, in the context in which, according to the PA, the doctor who signed the document that would confirm the need for Igor Dodon to travel abroad stated that “the patient in question is not known to him and that he would have affixed the stamp on the Send-Extras at the request of a colleague”.

The PA reported that the doctor said during the hearings that “the request came from his colleague who always examines the Dodon family and is in close relations with them, being the wife of a councillor in the Chisinau Municipal Council, a member of the faction of the party to which Igor Dodon belonged”.

Meanwhile, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, who was due to leave for Romania from 28 January 2023 to 5 February 2023, has announced that he has cancelled his departure.

“Due to the prohibition by the prosecutor on the case that the wife should accompany us, as well as pressure and persecution of the doctors who issued the prescription for rehabilitation, we decided to cancel the trip. We will look for alternative treatment solutions in our country,” Dodon explained.

Anti-corruption prosecutor’s office requests house arrest for Igor Dodon

On 19 January 2023, the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) granted the request of Igor Dodon’s lawyers for permission to leave Moldova from 28 January 2023 to 5 February 2023 in order to provide post-Covid-19 rehabilitation treatment in Romania for the former president’s son. According to the PA, the former president’s lawyers have attached a number of documents that would confirm the need to travel abroad, including the Reference-Extras No 0163158 of 18 January 2023.

On 26 January, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) announced that it had submitted a request to the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) to replace the preventive measure against former President Igor Dodon.

“In the court hearing the prosecutors requested to hear the doctor but the court rejected that request. On 25 January 2023 the doctor whose name and surname was indicated in the medical document stated that the patient mentioned was unknown to him and that he had affixed the stamp on the Referral-Extras at the request of a colleague.

According to the doctor, the request came from his colleague who always examines the Dodon family and is in close relations with them, being the wife of a councillor of the Chisinau Municipal Council, a member of the faction of the party to which the accused belonged,” the PA reported.

At the same time, according to anti-corruption prosecutors, the doctor mentioned that the procedures indicated in the Referral-Extras are not necessary to be performed abroad, as they are available in Moldova, and there are no such recommendations in the national clinical protocol on the treatment of Covid-19 infection (medium severity form).

“In these circumstances, on January 26, 2023, prosecutors carried out seizures of documents and computer devices, so all actions will be examined in the light of the crime of making, possession, sale or use of official documents granting rights, in this regard a criminal case will be initiated,” the PA also announced.

On January 6, 2023, the judges of the CSJ accepted 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, accused of committing the crime of passive bribery, organization and acceptance of political party financing from a “criminal organization”.

Igor Dodon was released from house arrest by 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.

The former president’s files

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.