Moldova’s Prosecutor’s Office has challenged the court ruling that the country’s former president Igor Dodon could terminate his house arrest following his arrest in May for passive corruption, illicit enrichment and treason.
The former president himself announced this Sunday the intentions of the Prosecutor’s Office by publishing the documents received in this regard on his Telegram account. The initial ruling, announced on November 18, exempted him from house arrest but prohibited him from leaving the country.
«He is summoned to the Supreme Court, which will consider a protest to its Nov. 18 ruling on the use of the ban on leaving the country as a preventive measure,» Dodon has indicated.
Moldova’s Prosecutor’s Office has already summoned Dodon to testify in December 2021 on suspicion of involvement in a scheme of theft of public resources, although the former president called the summons a «smokescreen.» «It is impossible to intimidate me,» he said at the time.
According to investigating judges, the leaders of the company Energocom, which guarantees the supply of electricity in the country, conspired with several officials of the Ministry of Energy and the National Energy Regulatory Agency, among others, to acquire energy with cost overruns from which they then benefited.
This situation takes place in the midst of rising tensions in the separatist region of Transnistria in the face of the military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia against Ukraine on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Dodon, a pro-Russian, was defeated in the 2020 elections by the conservative and pro-European Maia Sandu. Moldova is a former Soviet republic candidate for EU membership and located between Ukraine and Romania. The country is torn between its aspirations to strengthen its ties with the European Union and strengthen its ties with Moscow.
