The Chisinau Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected the appeal of the lawyers of former Democratic leader Vladimir Plahotniuc regarding the annulment of the preventive arrest measure issued on behalf of the former head of the Democrats. Meanwhile, Plahotniuc, who fled Moldova in 2019 is yet to be found and apprehended.

Prosecutors from the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) announce that they have argued the need to maintain the pre-trial detention of the defendant Vladimir Plahotniuc in the case generically called “Metalferos,” and the Chisinau Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of lawyers, who challenged the application of this measure.

In June 2022, the Chisinau Ciocana Court ordered the arrest in absentia of the accused, at the request of the PCCOCS prosecutors. The pronouncement of the judgment followed the examination of the request in November 2021, during which time the lawyers filed various requests (including challenges by judges, transfer of the case to another court), which were forwarded to the Supreme Court of Justice. In order to put an end to these deliberate delays, the prosecutors filed a motion for the lawyer to be fined, but this did not happen.

The measure is to be applied from the date of the defendant’s detention, and in this regard, the Interpol response that is due to arrive is also examining the prosecutors’ request to put Plahotniuc on the wanted list, filed in October 2021. Prosecutors are charging him in the case with a range of offences, including fraud, money laundering, creation and management of a criminal organisation. However, until a final court ruling is handed down, the defendant is invoking the presumption of innocence as a procedural right provided by law.

In the “Metalferos” case, Vladimir Plahotniuc is charged on three counts – creation and management of a criminal organisation, fraud on a particularly large scale and money laundering.

Vladimir Plahotniuc left Moldova in June 2019 after the party he led, PDM, handed over the government to a coalition formed by the ACUM Bloc and PSRM, which broke up in November 2019. In March 2020, the US Embassy in Chisinau confirmed that Plahotniuc is on US soil.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requested Plahotniuc’s extradition in June 2020, when the former democratic leader was located in the US, and in September 2020, when he was identified in Turkey, respectively, but no response to these requests from either country has reached the Chisinau authorities. On 1 October 2021, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office submitted a repeated request to the Interpol National Central Bureau in Moldova asking the General Secretariat of the International Criminal Police Organization INTERPOL to issue an international wanted persons notice for Plahotniuc.

In June this year, the Chisinau Parliament approved in the first reading a draft law which stipulates that criminal cases could be prosecuted in the absence of the person concerned if he or she evades prosecution or trial, which could be the case for Shor and Plahotniuc.

In July 2020, ZdG published an investigation revealing that Plahotniuc had signatory rights or was a beneficiary of at least three companies that directly or indirectly benefited tens of millions of dollars from contracts with Metalferos, a joint-stock company in which the state has a majority stake. The money went into the accounts of Plahotniuc’s affiliated companies, including when he was in public office, but neither the money nor the companies were listed in the former politician’s declarations of assets and interests.

Over the past 20 years, Metalferos has repeatedly been the target of accusations of corruption, being affiliated with former PDM leader Vladimir Plahotniuc and people in his entourage. ZdG has obtained and analysed dozens of documents confirming multiple allegations that have accompanied Metalferos’ activities over the past decade. Most of these issues are also being investigated by prosecutors in a criminal case opened in December 2019, but the case has no finality.