Igor Popa, the head of the Chișinău Prosecutor’s Office, Ciocana headquarters, was detained for 72 hours on Tuesday, November 9. According to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, Igor Pope is suspected of illicit enrichment.

“The journalistic investigations regarding the fortune of the deputy chief prosecutor of Chișinău Prosecutor’s Office, Ciocana headquarters, served as the basis for starting the criminal investigation. As a result of the criminal prosecution actions carried out, Popa was detained for 72 hours,” it is shown in the informative note of the institution.

Until 2018, Igor Popa was deputy general prosecutor, and shortly after the resignation of Eduard Harunjen from the position of head of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, he held the interim position of the general prosecutor. Popa has been the subject of several media scandals, being accused of falsifying several criminal cases during the communist government, but also of covering up the cases regarding the events of April 7, 2009.

Igor Popa came to the public attention during the communist government, when he investigated or participated, as head of the Section for the Investigation of Criminal Cases on Exceptional Cases within the General prosecutor’s Office, in conducting criminal prosecutions in several open criminal cases on behalf of those who were against Voronin’s rule.

Igor Popa is also the prosecutor who signed several proceedings regarding the trial and detention of young protesters on April 7, 2009, in the police stations.

Previously, Igor Popa said for ZdG that he has “no regrets” regarding the cases investigated throughout his career.

“All the actions were perfectly legal. If it were otherwise, I would not have reached 17 years of work in the Prosecutor’s Office. Whatever the cases, including those regarding April 7, I have nothing to complain about. All the actions were legal,” Igor Popa stated.

Popa has had a career in the system since 1999 when he was appointed investigator in the Chișinău Prosecutor’s Office, Râșcani headquarters. Subsequently, he advanced to the positions of prosecutor for special missions within the General Prosecutor’s Office and interim prosecutor of Chișinău. In 2016, Igor Popa ran for the post of general prosecutor, but the competition was won by Eduard Harunjen.

According to anticoruptie.md, Igor Popa is the godson of the former head of the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Exceptional Cases, Nicolae Chitoroaga, accused of falsifying cases at the behest of those in the entourage of the former Democratic Party leader, Vladimir Plahotniuc.