A family from Calarasi complains that they were ill-treated by employees of the Palanca-Maiaki-Udobnoe customs post located on the Moldovan-Ukrainian border. In a news conference at IPN, Aculina Cazac said that she and her family are members of the Foundation for Helping Children with Disabilities AO “Moldova Mea”. Last weekend, they intended to go to Russia, but were stopped at the border.
The woman related that last Saturday, she, together with her husband, their three-year-old child, her brother and sister headed for Russia. At the customs post, she was called to an office without being offered explanations and there was questioned about the reasons of the trip to Russia, being suspected of human trafficking.
The woman’s brother Mihai Cazac said he was taken to another office, where he was kicked by police officers and told to sign a statement saying that they were traffickers. “They told me that if I do not sign, I will have to swallow the papers,” he stated.
The members of the family said they were kept in offices from 8am until afternoon and then taken by a car to the Chisinau Border Police Department. “We drank and ate nothing from morning till evening. The child was crying as he was hungry,” said Aculina Cazac.
In the same news conference, the head of AO “Moldova Mea” Fiodor Ghelici said this is not the first case of the kind at the Palanca customs post. It is a scheme used to extort money. At first, the persons are forced to admit that they committed something and then are told to pay money for dropping the charges.
“Minister Recean is a bandit. We demand starting a criminal case over the ill-treatment of this mother with a three-year-old child in her arms. We will go to Strasbourg too,” stated Fiodor Ghelici, adding that the family will demand damages of millions. He also said that there are dozens of such families that will start to speak and will show the real face of the police.
