In February 2020, the prosecutors found out that the former Security and Intelligence Service director, Vasile Botnari is the only one responsible in the case of the illegal extradition of the Turkish teachers from Moldova. Currently, a ZdG source and the former director of a state enterprise claimed that Botnari is an adviser of the interim general director of the State Road Administration, Veceslav Potop, who in 2019 was investigated for corruption.  

According to Sorin Stati, the former director of the state-enterprise Moldatsa, the former director of the Security and Intelligence Service, Vasile Botnari, became an adviser to the State Road Administration. Vasile Botnari aims to manage the road constructions that was supposed to be made from Russian loan. 

Previously, a ZdG source told us that Vasile Botnari would work in the State Road Administration. ZdG’s source claimed that Botnari was an adviser to the current interim general director of the State Road Administration, Veaceslav Potop, who was prosecuted for corruption. 

When ZdG tried to obtain official confirmation of the information the representatives from the State Road Administration asked us to send them a request for information in this regard. ZdG asked the former director of the Security and Intelligence Service the same question, but he told us shortly that he doesn’t work anywhere.

Seven Turkish teachers who were living and working in Moldova were extradited by Moldovan authorities to Turkish under suspicious circumstances, in September 2018. They were detained when leaving their homes to go to work and were sent to Turkey, on a previously military airport close to Istanbul. The Security and Intelligence Service declared at that time that the seven Turkish citizens had ties to an Islamic group that is suspected of carrying out illegal activities in more countries. 

After the ACUM- Socialist Party coalition took the power the General Prosecutor’s Office announced about opening a criminal case in August 2019. During the criminal investigation process, the prosecutors established that the procedure on the extradition of the seven Turkish teachers was executed arbitrarily by the Security and Intelligence Service, without informing the Bureau for Migration and Asylum on the measures applied for the teachers’ extradition. 

The prosecutors pointed out that the entire operation was ordered, coordinated, and managed exclusively by the then director of the Security and Intelligence Service, Vasile Botnari.  At the stage of criminal prosecution, Botnari has collaborated during the inquiry and was placed under non-custodial investigation. For this crime, the legislation foresees up to six years of imprisonment, being deprived of the right to hold certain public office positions or to exercise specific activities for a period of five to ten years. 

• Moldova’s Extradition of Turkish Citizens: One Year Later