“ȘOR” party MP Marina Tauber, targeted in two criminal cases filed on “knowingly accepting party financing from an organized criminal group” and falsifying the report on the party’s financial management, remains in remand in Prison No. 13. Magistrates of the Chisinau Ciocana Court admitted on Wednesday, September 7, the request of the anti-corruption prosecutors and extended his pre-trial detention for another 20 days.

“I am not surprised by this decision. The judge did not resist pressure and issued this decision. We will continue the fight for citizens,” Marina Tauber said after the decision.

On 2 September, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office announced that the investigating judge had been asked to extend the term of the preventive measure “preventive arrest” against Marina Tauber for another 30 days.

In July 2022, anti-corruption prosecutors together with officers of the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA), carried out several searches in the criminal case on illegal financing of the political party “ȘOR”. At the time, the CNA announced that in the first half of this year, the “ȘOR” political party had made payments amounting to €600,000, while reported expenditure was just over 228,000 lei.

According to the evidence on file, it was found that the party had knowingly accepted money of dubious origin from a “criminal group”, which was used for party purposes, such as fees for artists, salaries for members and the organisation of protests. According to the NAC, the money of the “criminal group” arrived in Moldova in the form of transfers and conversions, including in cryptocurrency, and various financing channels such as Dubai, Vienna and Monaco were used to disguise the origin of the funds.

Also in July, the acting Prosecutor General, Dumitru Robu, submitted to Parliament two requests for waiver of immunity for MP Marina Tauber, who is the subject of two criminal cases brought on the grounds of “knowingly accepting the financing of the “ȘOR” political party from an organised criminal group”. Tauber was stripped of her parliamentary immunity on Thursday 21 July.

Tauber described the lifting of parliamentary immunity as a “political decision that has already been taken”. The party’s vice-president declared herself innocent and said she was not afraid of anything, “neither of detention nor of searches”.

On 23 July, Marina Tauber was remanded in custody for 30 days in the 13th prison in the capital. On 16 August, magistrates extended the arrest warrant for Marina Tauber for a further 20 days in prison no. 13.