The Chișinău Court, Ciocana headquarters, reduced the punishment applied in the case of the detainee Vladimir Moscalciuc, alias Makena by 1,927 days. 

The conclusion in this regard was issued on July 3, after Oleg Mîța, Moscalciuc’s lawyer filed a complaint against the administration of the penitentiary institution regarding the conditions of detention in which Vladimir Moscalciuc was detained.

In 1999-2010, Moscalciuc, convicted and detained in various penitentiaries in the country, formed a criminal organization called Makena.

The prosecutors established that the criminal organization was formed from different groups within the penitentiaries in the country.

In order to obtain funds to support the organization in prisons and to attract other members, the members of the organization blackmailed other convicts in prisons. 

The convicts were threatened with death, were forced to pay large sums of money. These sums were extorted from the relatives of the convicted persons, who were at large, through various criminal schemes created by the members of the criminal organization Makena.

On July 3, 2020, the Chișinău Court, Ciocana headquarters, reduced the punishment of Moscaliuc by 1,927 days, in total.

According to the conclusion issued by the magistrate Veniamin Chihai, the court found that Moscalciuc was in detention conditions contrary to the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.

Thus, the court reduced Moscalciuc’s sentence by 1,582 days, for the period of 719 days in which the convict was in pre-trial detention in Penitentiary no. 13 as a detainee. The court calculated two days in prison for one day of pre-trial detention.

The magistrate also decided to reduce Moscalciuc’s sentence by another 345 days, for the period of 1,157 days in which the convict was detained in Penitentiary no. 13 – Chișinău. The judges calculated three days of reduction for 10 days of detention.

In January 2020, the Chișinău Court of Appeal completely overturned the decision of the Chișinău Court, which in August 2019 reduced by six and a half years the sentence applied to Moscalciuc, alias Makena.

The magistrates from the Chișinău District Court referred the case for retrial to the Chișinău Court, mentioning that the term for reducing the sentence was miscalculated.

The State Pleads Guilty to the Detainees

Previously, Ziarul de Garda wrote that from the beginning of 2019, 72 convicts were released from prisons in Moldova on the grounds that they were detained in inhumane and degrading conditions, which contravene art. 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). 

Among them is the former athlete Ion Șoltoianu, sentenced in 2013 to 12 years in prison for murder, illegal storage of weapons, and blackmail, and also former Prime Minister Vlad Filat. 

In total, during this period, over 2,500 people, in detention institutions in Moldova, complained about conditions contrary to the provisions of the ECHR and requested compensation for those conditions by reducing the term of detention or monetary compensation. 

These complaints are based on new amendments to Moldova’s Criminal Procedure Code, which entered into force as of January 1, 2019. The amendments allow for persons detained for at least ten days in inhuman or degrading conditions to request a reduction of their penalty or monetary damages. 

The mechanism was introduced after the European Court of Human Rights requested that Moldova establish a remedy against violations of the European Convention on Human Rights at the national level, as a result of repeated statements in their decisions that persons being held in Chișinău’s Prison No. 13 were subject to inhumane and degrading conditions.

• DOC/Ex-Prime Minister Vladimir Filat’s Sentence Reduced by 682 Days – the Court’s Motivation