Former Prime Minister Vlad Filat today said his last word in the case in which he is accused of money laundering in particularly large proportions. He declares himself innocent and says that “it is the same facts, the same amounts of money” for which he was previously convicted.

Filat said he expects a legal decision and wanted “a fair attitude, not a special one”. But he was keen to point out to the judges that he was not a “simple prime minister” but one with a term of office of almost four years.

The sentence in the money laundering case against former Prime Minister Filat is due to be handed down on 29 April.

On 19 January, prosecutors asked for a seven-year prison sentence and a fine of 12.8 million lei for former Prime Minister Vlad Filat, who is being investigated in a money laundering case. A month later, on 27 February, a hearing was convened at the Buiucani court in Chisinau for the defendant’s last word.

Former Prime Minister Filat said he expects a legal decision and wanted “a fair attitude, not a special one”. He was keen to point out to the judges that he was not a “simple prime minister” but one with a mandate of almost four years.

“I did not run away from Moldova, although I was often advised to do so. I did not agree with the conviction (ed. in a corruption case), but I executed it. He wants me to be fair in my attitude. I was not just a prime minister, but 3 years and 7 months. I want a fair attitude, not a special one,” Filat said in his plea.

In his speech, the former prime minister said that justice in Moldova had gone too far, as “public opinion is placed above the law”.

Finally, Filat added that “the names of prosecutors, investigators or those who are exerting pressure are not to be found in the ECHR sentences, only the names of the judges who made the decisions”.

The former prime minister told Ziarul de Gardă that he still believes that this is a political case and argued that it was filed during the period in which it was filed.

“Exactly the facts that are described in this file are also written in the file in which I was convicted. The same facts, the same amounts of money, only in a file with a different name, ‘money laundering’. I was blackmailed with this file,” the former prime minister said.

The file in which former Prime Minister Vlad Filat is accused of money laundering in particularly large proportions was sent to trial in 2018, with the first court hearing taking place in January 2019.

Former Prime Minister Filat is accused of having laundered money in particularly large proportions during 2013, using an intermediary with whom he was in a relationship of affinity to make transfers. Thus, on 1 July 2013, Filat allegedly concluded a contract with a Washington, USA-based consulting company for electoral campaign assistance for the PLDM, which he was leading, for the November 2014 parliamentary elections. For the contracted services, he allegedly paid the non-resident company a total of 12,847,902 lei, making regular transfers from the accounts of companies managed through the intermediary, in which financial means obtained through corruption offences were deposited from the Savings Bank.

• The law provides for a prison sentence of five to ten years for the offence of money laundering on a particularly large scale.