Magistrates of the Chisinau Ciocana Court resumed on Wednesday, July 20, the court session in which they examined the prosecutors’ request to extend the preventive measure in the form of house arrest for 30 days for former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, but a decision on this matter will be pronounced on Thursday, July 21, by the court.

Socialist Dodon was also in court today.

“The decision has not yet been announced. The arguments for me do not show the need to extend the arrest. There are no new arguments. He [i.e the prosecutor] was disturbed by the interviews I gave in the last few days. There is no logic in trying to ban me from talking to the press. I’ll keep talking, I’ll keep criticizing. I have a lot of relatives, nobody has left in the last month. I assure you that none of my relatives will hide. These are insinuations. We will see what the court’s decision will be,” Igor Dodon said in the hallways of the court.

Petru Iarmaliuc, one of the prosecutors investigating Dodon’s case, claims that the prosecutors presented evidence to the court justifying the extension of Dodon’s house arrest warrant. The prosecutor also alleges that two persons, who are accomplices and are defendants in the case against the socialist, have left Moldova.

“We have presented five pieces of evidence for the extension of the mandate. We have presented evidence. Indeed some people have left. They are accomplices. Two people are absconding and are not in Moldova. They left after the detention and arrest of Merineanu and Dodon. There are two people who are accused. Prosecutions are complex, there are several people involved, that’s why these risks are present,” said Petru Iarmaliuc.

Today’s meeting was rescheduled after Tuesday, July 19, the hearing at the Chisinau Court of Appeals, Ciocana, where magistrates were to examine the application of prosecutors for the extension of preventive measure in the form of house arrest, for a period of 30 days, against former President of Moldova Igor Dodon, was postponed.

In a comment to Ziarul de Gardă, Eugenia Zubco, a member of the group of state prosecutors leading the prosecution, said the hearing was postponed at the request of Dodon’s lawyers. According to the prosecutor, the lawyers asked for time to study “additional issues presented by the prosecutors.”

Socialist Igor Dodon, who is suspected of passive corruption, accepting political party funding from a criminal organisation, treason against the homeland and illicit enrichment, accused prosecutors of wanting to ban him from communicating with the press.

Asked what stage the case was at, Petru Iarmaliuc, one of the anti-corruption prosecutors handling the case against Dodon, said that so far about 30 people had been interviewed.

Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon is currently under house arrest. On 29 June, the Chisinau Court of Appeal extended his house arrest for 30 days.

Dodon was detained on 24 May after anti-corruption prosecutors carried out ten raids for more than ten hours at several locations owned by Dodon and his relatives.

The searches took place in Sadova, at Igor Dodon’s parental home and house in Chisinau, at the Sadova “Sadovo” rest base, at Molovata on the banks of the Dniester River, where Dodon’s family has invested in another rest base, at the headquarters of the foundations of the former socialist president of Moldova, including the headquarters of the Moldovan-Russian Business Union, where Dodon is president.

During the raids, prosecutors seized goods and money worth tens of millions of lei, and more than 600 thousand lei, 17 thousand euros and 1000 dollars were found in one of the locations searched.

Prosecutors also found a receipt showing that Igor Dodon’s wife had paid 25 thousand euros, cash, in August 2021 as a deposit for kitchen equipment. Ziarul de Gardă identified the person who signed this receipt. She provided us with details of the transaction. The trail leads to the ex-president’s brother-in-law, detained by prosecutors while swallowing a receipt, and to an all-inclusive resort on the Nistru River, purchased last summer.