Magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) on Monday (17 July) accepted the prosecutor’s request and extended the judicial control for another 60 days for former President Igor Dodon, who is under investigation for passive bribery, organisation and acceptance of political party financing from a “criminal organisation”.

The information about the extension of the preventive measure was confirmed to Ziarul de Gardă by the press service of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.

On February 27, 2023, the PA announced that, after 13 court sessions, anti-corruption prosecutors began presenting evidence in support of the charges against former President Igor Dodon in the case in which he is suspected of passive bribery, organization and acceptance of political party financing from a “criminal organization”.

The first court hearing in the case of former head of state Igor Dodon, which is investigating the episode filmed in June 2019, when he received a black bag from Vladimir Plahotniuc, took place on October 17, 2022, at the SCJ. Dodon is defended by three lawyers and the prosecution is provided by two prosecutors.

Igor Dodon is the first head of state to be tried for a crime committed while in office.

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 Forks, 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.