Former Speaker of Parliament Zinaida Greceanii and Socialist MP Corneliu Furculiță have the status of defendants in the “kuliok” case. According to sources of Ziarul de Gardă, they are also suspected of the crimes of accepting PSRM funding from a “criminal organization” and falsifying reports on the financial management of the political party. Igor Dodon, the former president of Moldova, is also a target in the case.

On Monday 31 October, the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) held the third hearing in the “kuliok” case, in which former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, a socialist, is accused of having demanded almost one million dollars from Vladimir Plahotniuc and Sergei Yaralov to negotiate “in his capacity as President of the Republic of Moldova”. Moldova, with decision-makers in the Russian Federation, favourable conditions for the political party “Democratic Party of Moldova” (PDM) and, personally, for Vladimir Plahotniuc on the creation of a governing coalition in Moldova, between the political party PDM and the political party PSRM”.

On 6 October 2022, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office announced the referral of the criminal case of indictment of former President of the Republic of Moldova Igor Dodon in the commission of the crime of passive bribery and organization and acceptance of political party financing from a criminal organization, committed during his term of office as President of the Republic 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 CSJ 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.

“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 in order to report to the country’s leadership on the tasks they had 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 Furculiță, 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.