The judges of the Chisinau Court of Appeals have fully admitted the application of anti-corruption prosecutors against the former director of the Intelligence and Security Service (SIS), Vasile Botnari, and placed him under preventive arrest for 30 days, with execution in Penitentiary No. 13.

On 22 June, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (AP) announced that it had appealed to the Chisinau Court of Appeal against the house arrest warrant imposed on Botnari, after the magistrates of the Chisinau Ciocana Court ordered on 20 June 2022 the replacement of the preventive arrest imposed on the former SIS director with house arrest for a period of 30 days.

On 29 March, anti-corruption prosecutors raided the home of the former head of the SIS, who was the subject of a criminal case concerning the illicit enrichment of a person of public dignity.

Searches at the home of the former head of SIS, previously fined in the case of Turkish teachers expelled from Moldova: suspected of illicit enrichment

Former head of SIS, Vasile Botnari, under investigation for illicit enrichment, placed under arrest in CNA isolation for 25 days
On 20 April, the magistrates of the Chisinau Ciocana Court changed the preventive measure from solitary confinement to house arrest for 30 days for former SIS director Vasile Botnari

The former director of SIS, Vasile Botnari, the only person to be named in the case concerning the expulsion of the 7 Turkish teachers from the Orizont High School in the capital, who was sentenced to a suspended sentence in September 2020, paid 125 thousand euros for the damages he caused to the extradited Turkish teachers and also paid 380 thousand lei for the charter plane that was rented to transport the teachers (in total the equivalent of 145 thousand euros).

ANI has therefore launched an investigation into the origin of the money Botnari paid. This money was not included in the declaration of assets and personal interests filed by the former SIS director at the time. By a judgment of the Chisinau Buiucani Court of 15 July 2020, Vasile Botnari was sentenced to a criminal fine of 88,000 lei and deprived of the right to hold certain public offices for 5 years.

The defendant also acquitted voluntarily, pending sentencing:

• to the benefit of the Ministry of Finance – 125 thousand euros – as damage caused to the State by the conviction of the Republic of Moldova at the ECHR,
• for the benefit of the SIS – 348 432 lei for the charter of the vessel for the removal of the victims from the territory of the Republic of Moldova to Turkey.