The Discipline and Ethics Commission under the Superior Council of Prosecutors (SCP) has admitted the appeal filed by Sergiu Tofilat and Stefan Gligor, members of the Party of Change, who demanded the disciplinary liability of the deputy of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), Vasile Plevan, on the grounds that he “intentionally blocked the investigation of the “National Hotel” case and violated the procedural-criminal rules and the Code of Ethics of Prosecutors”.

The Disciplinary and Ethics Commission has therefore decided to refer the disciplinary procedure against PA Deputy Vasile Plevan to the Prosecutors’ Inspectorate.

“(…) The College comes to the conclusion that the data and information of the disciplinary case gathered by the Prosecutors’ Inspectorate are not complete and sufficient to adopt an objective and well-founded solution on this case and the disciplinary procedure regarding the prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (currently acting deputy chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office), Vasile Plevan, is to be referred to the Prosecutors’ Inspectorate of the General Prosecutor’s Office (…),” a Commission document said.

“(…) Prosecutor Plevan “does not see” the attempt to embezzle state property, namely the fact that the Andronachi/Sor group, aided by some City Hall officials, illegally seized 1.2 ha of land in the city center and spat over the Supreme Court ruling. This land is worth at least 6 million euros, money that should have been paid into the municipal budget (…). We will not stop here, we will demand the resumption of the criminal prosecution on this case and bring prosecutor Plevan to account,” the Party of Change said in a Facebook post.

On 29 June 2023, Ștefan Gligor and Sergiu Tofilat filed an appeal with the Discipline and Ethics Commission under the PSC against the decision of the Prosecutors’ Inspectorate to stop the disciplinary procedure of 20 June 2023 against the PA deputy Vasile Plevan, who refused to resume the criminal prosecution in the “National Hotel” case. The authors of the complaint noted that the prosecutor had not found that “employees of the Chisinau City Hall illegally issued (in 2021, editor’s note) the authorization to dismantle the National Hotel without the consent of the owner – the Public Services Agency”.

On 12 May 2023, CNA Director Iulian Rusu said from the Parliament’s rostrum that the “National Hotel” case is a “disgrace for the justice sector”, noting that “it must be reviewed and taken to the end”.

“As for the National Hotel, I believe that the National Hotel case is a disgrace for the whole justice sector and in order for us to rehabilitate, we have involved a huge number of employees to review the situation regarding the National Hotel. Honourable Members, we have found several pieces of evidence and we have several suspicions that crimes were committed from the very beginning, in 2006, when the decision was taken on the privatisation of Moldova-Tur SA. We have presented this information to our fellow prosecutors. Unfortunately, our proposal for an ordinance to initiate criminal cases on several articles was partially repealed. I do not consider this to be a fair approach to the work of the prosecution officers. And this case as I said, which is a disgrace to the whole justice system, needs to be reviewed and brought to an end,” said the NAC director.

The National Hotel was privatised in 2006. Alfa-Engineering was the company that in 2006 acquired 83.24% of the state’s shares in Moldova-Tur, which owned the National Hotel. Since then, the Public Property Agency has been “fighting” in the courts to terminate the contract under which the building was privatised. Although the investments foreseen in the contract were not made, the judges have each time ruled in favour of the economic agent that bought the building from the state.