Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon will remain under house arrest until 21 October. The Chisinau Court of Appeal examined on Tuesday 27 September the appeals filed by Igor Dodon’s lawyers and the prosecutor in the case. The lawyers’ appeal against the suspension of the preventive measure was rejected and the prosecutor’s appeal was partially upheld, thus the preventive measure of house arrest against Igor Dodon, set by the first instance for 20 days, was extended by the Court of Appeal to 30 days.

“There were two appeals, the lawyers’ appeal and the prosecutor’s appeal. The lawyers’ appeal was dismissed and the prosecutor’s appeal was partially allowed. Only the term for which the preventive measure of house arrest was extended was intervened. The first court set 20 days, and the Chisinau Court of Appeal extended the house arrest to 30 days,” Ion Bocan, spokesman of the Chisinau CA, told Ziarul de Gardă.

On September 19, 2022, the magistrates of the Chisinau Court, Ciocana seat, ordered the extension of the preventive measure is the form of house arrest for another 20 days on behalf of the former president of the country, Igor Dodon, although the prosecutors had requested 30 days of arrest.

“The reasons behind the submission of the request by anti-corruption prosecutors are determined by the continued existence of the risk of hindering the proper conduct of criminal proceedings, the exercise of undue pressure and influence on prosecutors, the risk of destroying evidence and influencing witnesses by inducing persons to give false statements, as well as the risk of evading criminal liability.

We point out that, in support of the alleged risks, the prosecutors presented new evidence, recently administered on 26 and 29 August and 08 September 2022 respectively, as well as that previously administered on 21 June 2022, which in conjunction with the results of the special investigative measures, confirm the soundness of the alleged risks.

Other non-custodial preventive measures such as provisional release under judicial supervision are not capable of preventing the risks referred to above and ensuring the proper conduct of criminal proceedings”, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office announced on 19 September.

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.

The raids took place in Sadova, at Igor Dodon’s parental home and house in Chisinau, at the Sadova “Sadovo” rest base, at Molovata on the Dniester river, where Dodon’s family has invested in another rest base, at the headquarters of the foundations of the former socialist president of Moldova, including the headquarters of the Moldovan-Russian Business Union, where Dodon is president.

During the raids, prosecutors seized goods and money worth tens of millions of lei, and more than 600 thousand lei, 17 thousand euros and 1000 dollars were found in one of the locations searched.

Prosecutors also found a receipt showing that Igor Dodon’s wife had paid 25 thousand euros, cash, in August 2021 as a deposit for kitchen equipment. The Guard newspaper identified the person who signed this receipt. She provided us with details of the transaction. The trail leads to the ex-president’s brother-in-law, detained by prosecutors while swallowing a receipt, and to an all-inclusive resort on the Nistru River, purchased last summer.

On 16 June, the wife of former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, socialist Galina Dodon, appeared before the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office to be questioned in the so-called “Kuliok” case. According to the decision of the anti-corruption prosecutors, Galina Dodon has been admitted as an accomplice in the illicit enrichment case against her husband Igor Dodon and is banned from leaving the country for 60 days.

Anti-corruption prosecutors summoned former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, a socialist, to the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office on Thursday (23 June) to inform him of the prosecutors’ decision to seize several of Dodon’s assets. The socialist was handed a copy of the decision on the seizure of assets under investigation.

In this context, officials from the General Prosecutor’s Office announce that the investigating judge has admitted the request of the anti-corruption prosecutors and authorized the seizure of real estate owned personally by the former President of the Republic of Moldova, as well as those held through intermediaries.

Therefore, at this stage of the prosecution of the case, in order to ensure a possible special or extended confiscation of assets, the following real estate was seized:

• land and individual house, located in mun. Chisinau, where the former president and his family live;
• land and buildings, located in the outskirts of the village of Sadova, district of Calarasi, owned through intermediaries close to the former head of state, who are accomplices in the offence of illicit enrichment;
• 4 plots of land and 6 buildings located in the village of Molovata, Dubasari district, held through an accomplice of the former President, currently in pre-trial detention;
• 4 cars, held through an intermediary third person.

On 27 July this year, Galina Dodon, mother of socialist Igor Dodon, was summoned to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office “to be charged with complicity in illicit enrichment”.