The criminal panel of the Chisinau Court of Appeal admitted on February 22, 2023 the appeal filed by the prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) against the 2021 sentence of the Chisinau Court, Buiucani branch, and sentenced one defendant to 4 years imprisonment with serving the sentence in a semi-closed penitentiary, with a fine in the amount of 100 000 lei, and two defendants were fined 325 000 lei and 175 000 lei respectively, according to a press release of the PA.

By the decision of the Criminal College of the Chisinau Court of Appeal of 22 February 2023, the sentence of the Chisinau Buiucani Court of 22 November 2021 was partially annulled and a new judgment was pronounced on the case according to the first instance according to which: one of the defendants was found guilty of committing the offence of active bribery and influence peddling, and a final sentence of four years’ imprisonment was imposed on him, with the sentence to be served in a semi-closed penitentiary and a fine of 100,000 lei.

The other two defendants were found guilty of committing the offences of influence peddling and were fined 325 000 lei and 175 000 lei respectively.

They were also ordered to forfeit 450 euros, 70 dollars and 8,600 lei passed on to them.

Previously, the Chisinau Court had sentenced the first man to three years in prison, with the inclusion in this term of the period during which the defendant was deprived of liberty from 21.08.2017 at 06:50 to 14.12.2017 at 15:30, as well as to pay 100 thousand lei to the state account. At the same time, the execution of the prison sentence was suspended for a probationary period of 4 years. The other two had been acquitted on the charges by the first instance.

The criminal case was opened in July 2017. According to the materials, the defendants organized an intermediary activity for the organization of the finalization of the acts of confirmation of authenticity, apostille, recognition and equivalence of educational documents, and for this purpose they allegedly influenced the competent public persons of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research of the Republic of Moldova, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova and, where appropriate, the diplomatic representations of other states in the Republic of Moldova, as well as recruited persons who needed to authenticate the educational documents, to whom he proposed to speed up the established procedure, which legally takes up to 30 days.

For the services they provided, which consisted of issuing documents in a few hours or days, they allegedly demanded and received 50 euros for one document, and the amounts demanded and received for the entire set of documents varied between 250 euros and 1 500 euros.

“The prosecution in this case lasted 3 months. Although at the stage of criminal prosecution the defendants entered into plea agreements, during the judicial investigation the defendants waived them and did not admit their guilt, and the trial of the case in the first instance lasted 4 years, and at the Chisinau Court of Appeal it took one year,” the PA points out.

The reasoned decision of the Court of Appeal will be delivered on 01 May 2023.