Lawyers for former Moldovan President Igor Dodon have sent an open letter to the chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), Veronica Dragalin, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, the EU Delegation to Moldova and the EU Delegation to Moldova. Moldova and the Council of Europe Office in Chisinau accusing the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA) and the Intelligence and Security Service (SIS) officers of “permanently and deliberately admitting controlled leaks of confidential information” in the criminal case in which Dodon is suspected of passive bribery, organising, directing and knowingly accepting the financing of the political party by an organised criminal group, treason and illicit enrichment.

At the same time, the socialist’s defenders accuse that Galina Dodon, mother of former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, was subjected to “acts of hooliganism” in the CNA hearing room, when she was summoned by prosecutors to receive the forensic report, and call for “the identification and criminal liability of all persons who committed acts of hooliganism”.

On 11 August, the PA came out with a reaction after the mother of former head of state Igor Dodon, Galina Dodon, who was summoned by prosecutors on 10 August to receive the forensic report, was booed in the NAC hearing room. Regarding the incident that occurred at the entrance and in the hearing room of the NAC, the PA says that it “disagrees with the occurrence of this incident and claims that persons summoned to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office should not be subjected to such treatment”.

“However, one of the priorities in the work of the institution is to respect the rights and freedoms of the person, as well as the human dignity of all those involved in the criminal process,” according to the PA.

At the same time, the institution stated that it has no powers and “no possibility to manage any incidents like the ones of yesterday”, given that the PA does not have its own premises, access and exit from the institution’s premises being regulated by the authority that manages the room, rules that “would not provide real ways to ensure the confidentiality of the identity of persons summoned to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office”.

On 10 August, Galina Dodon, the mother of former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, a socialist, was summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office to be informed of “the result of the expert report on the ammunition found at her home” during the raids at the end of May in the case against her son.

At the same time, on 27 July, Galina Dodon, mother of socialist Igor Dodon, was summoned to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office “to be charged with complicity in illicit enrichment”, Mariana Cherpec, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, told Ziarul de Gardă.

Earlier, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that “as a result of the searches at the home of the former president’s mother, funds in the amount of 689,600.00 lei, 17,005.00 euros and 1,000.00 US dollars were found and seized from the safe, the provenance of which is to be investigated. The sum of 17 005.00 euros, found at the home of the defendant’s mother, was in a paper envelope bearing the logo of a political party to which the former president belonged”.

Illicit enrichment is one of the charges brought by prosecutors against the country’s former president, socialist Igor Dodon, along with three other counts: passive bribery, accepting the financing of a political party by a criminal organisation and treason against the Motherland.

Socialist Igor 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 on which it was indicated 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.