Papuc and Botnari acquitted, PGO insists on conviction

01.07.2015 12:46
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The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) considers the acquittal of the ex-officials of the Ministry of the Interior Gheorghe Papuc and Vladimir Botnari, who were accused of committing offenses with serious consequences, is unjustified. According to the PGO, the Supreme Court of Justice didn’t act in accordance with the procedural law and the relevant requirements applying to a loud case as the case was examined without summoning the sides and the prosecutors’ appeal was rejected at a time when the appeals of the defendants were fully or partially accepted, IPN reports.

Earlier, by a decision of January 19, 2015, the Chisinau Appeals Court sentenced ex-minister Gheorghe Papuc to four years in jail and banned him from holding posts in the subdivisions of the Ministry of the Interior for a period of five years. The special rank of police general-lieutenant was withdrawn from him. Ex-deputy minister Vladimir Botnari was put on probation for a two-year period and banned from working in the subdivisions of the Ministry of the Interior for a five-year period, being deprived of the special rank of police general-major.

By its decision of June 30, 2015, the Supreme Court of Justice acquitted both of the defendants on the counts of professional negligence that resulted in the death of a person. On the count of abuse of power with serious consequences, the court modified the punishment against Gheorghe Papuc from imprisonment into a fine of 20,000 lei and banned him from working at the Ministry of the Interior for a five-year period.

The court also ordered striking Gheorghe Papuc off the wanted list and annulled the Chisinau Appeals Court’s decision by which the special rank of police general-lieutenant was withdrawn from him.

Though the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice is irrevocable after it is fully edited, the PGO will consider the possibility of intervening by extraordinary ways.

Gheorghe Papuc and Vladimir Botnari were accused of abuse of power during the events of April 2009 during which young man Valeriu Boboc died, while the Parliament Building and the Presidential Office were devastated.