The criminal panel of the Chisinau Court of Appeals admitted the appeal of prosecutors and rejected the appeal filed by the defenders of former Moldovan President Igor Dodon against the decision of the first court on the extension for another 30 days of the house arrest warrant in the name of the socialist.

Prosecutor Petru Iarmaliuc said that the former socialist head of state is prohibited from leaving his home and communicating with other people except those who live with him or are members of his family.

“Examining the appeals of the defence and the prosecutors, the judges allowed the prosecutors’ appeal and dismissed the defence appeal as unfounded. Partially quashed the decision of the Chisinau Court, Ciocana Branch, which issued the errors admitted by the investigating judge, because both the trial court, on 26 May, when it applied house arrest and the court when it extended the preventive measure both on 21 June and 21 July admitted errors in applying other restrictions, which constitutes a serious judicial error. The criminal panel made a correction of this error,” Iarmaliuc said.

At the same time, the prosecutor said he would not have asked Igor Dodon not to communicate with the media, as the former president claimed.

Dodon’s lawyers asked that the socialist be investigated in freedom.

On 21 July this year, the magistrates of the Ciocana court in Chisinau accepted the prosecutors’ request and ordered the extension of the preventive measure in the form of house arrest for 30 days for former Moldovan President Igor Dodon.

Socialist Igor Dodon is suspected of passive bribery, acceptance of political party financing by a criminal organisation, treason and illicit enrichment.

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 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. The Guard newspaper 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.