Moldova’s former president, socialist Igor Dodon, remains under house arrest. Magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) decided on Monday, October 17, to extend the socialist’s house arrest by 30 days. The information was confirmed to Ziarul de Gardă by Petru Iarmaliuc, the prosecutor leading the prosecution group in the case.

Igor Dodon is the first head of state to be tried for a crime committed while in office. For this reason, the case was referred directly to the CSJ, which by law is competent to try criminal cases involving offences committed by a head of state at first instance.

On Monday 17 October, the CSJ will hold the first hearing in the “kuliok” case, in which former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, a socialist, is accused of having demanded almost a million dollars from Vladimir Plahotniuc and Sergei Yaralov to negotiate with the Russian Federation.

On October 6, 2022, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office announced the indictment of former President of Moldova Igor Dodon in the criminal case of committing the crime of passive bribery and organizing and accepting political party financing from a criminal organization, committed during his term as President of Moldova in June 2019.

The two-count case against Igor Dodon has been submitted to the CSJ for examination on the merits. According to the provisions of Article 39 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the SCJ is competent to judge in first instance criminal cases concerning crimes committed by the President of the Republic of Moldova, the Prosecutor’s Office said.

“According to the charges brought against Igor Dodon, the latter is accused of having demanded and accepted from them money in the amount of $600,000 to $1,000,000 in order to promote the interests of Vladimir Plahotniuc and Sergei Yaralov, who created and led a criminal organization and had an interest in controlling political, social and economic processes in Moldova, as well as to evade criminal liability in the Russian Federation. This amount was demanded by Igor Dodon for the payment of the current expenses of the political party “Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova” (PSRM), including the payment of salaries of the employees of the same party,” reads the statement published by the AP.

“I declare myself completely innocent and we will prove this in court. This is a 100% political case, sewn with yellow thread, with false witnesses. In addition, we have identified numerous irregularities and mistakes on the part of the prosecutors, who rushed to send the case to court to report to the country’s leadership on the tasks they set themselves,” Igor Dodon said after the case was sent to court. 

The criminal prosecution in the case generically called “kuliok” was resumed on 18 May 2022, a day after the Chisinau CA overturned in full the decision of the Chisinau Ciocana district court to uphold the previously issued order of non-prosecution against the former president of Moldova. The case is based on a video footage of a meeting between Igor Dodon, Vladimir Plahotniuc and Serghei Iaralov in June 2019, in which the PDM leader is seen giving Dodon a black bag in which it was speculated there was money. In that recording, Igor Dodon tells Plahotniuc not to “walk around with his asses” and to pass the bag to Cornel (supposedly Corneliu Forks, ed.), because he was going to pay certain salaries. Plahotniuc then told Iaralov to give the money to Costea (supposedly Constantin Botnari, editor’s note) to pass on to Cornel.

The video footage, published by former MP Iurie Renita, is a continuation of the video recording of the meeting of the three in June 2019, when Dodon said he receives monthly money from the Russian Federation to finance the PSRM. Later, Dodon publicly stated that he had played a role in those discussions, with the aim of ousting Plahotniuc from government.

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. Igor Dodon is suspected of illicit enrichment, passive bribery, accepting political party funding from a criminal organisation and treason.