Victor Munteanu, the lawyer for ex-prime minister Vlad Filat, says illegalities were committed in the trail of the first criminal case in which his client was convicted. Also, Vlad Filat did not have the opportunity to defend himself, as they do in a democratic state. In a press conference at IPN, the lawyer stated that national legal norms and the European Convention on Human Rights were violated in this case and, if the trial had been a fair one, Vlad Filat would have been acquitted.
He noted that the trial began on October 15 in Parliament, when the then prosecutor general Corneliu Gurin abusively and illegally requested the MPs to lift Vlad Filat’s parliamentary immunity. Moreover, Gurin violated the presumption of innocence when he said that prosecutors had conclusive evidence demonstrating that Vlad Filat asked and received US$ 250 million from the then president of the Board of Directors of Banca de Economii Ilan Shor.
Victor Munteanu also said that the then prosecutor general should have addressed the request to the Parliament Speaker who was obliged to refer it to the chairman of the legal commission for appointments and immunities. This, together with the members of the commission, should have examined it, allowing simultaneously Vlad Filat to defend himself. But the procedure was not respected. The immunity was lifted by an open vote in Parliament, even if the law requires a secret ballot.
Two months after the criminal case was started, prospectors sent the case to court and Vlad Filat was this time accused of asking for US$40.3 million from Ilan Shor, not US$ 250 million, as the general prosecutor announced in Parliament. The sum of US$ 250 million was announced to mislead MEPs and national and international public opinion.
According to Victor Munteanu, in the trial held behind closed doors the legal procedures were seriously violated and the witnesses for the defense could not be questioned. At the same time, with no legal basis or evidence, Vlad Filat was made the owner of companies with which he had nothing to do. In just six months, the ordinary court of law sentenced Vlad Filat to nine years in jail. The Court of Appeals upheld the sentence. The Supreme Court of Justice dismissed the appeal as unfounded.
The lawyer noted the violations committed in Vlad Filat’s case highlighted that the sentences in the Republic of Moldova are evidently formulated not according to the beliefs of judges, but in order to make inconvenient people remain silent. Vlad Filat’s conviction was based on untruthful and unfounded information and false declarations and this was done intentionally in order to induce the perception of guilt before trial. If the requests to conduct financial-banking examinations had been accepted, they would have seen who actually benefited from the financial resources.
Victor Munteanu said he submit a revision application to the Buiucani branch of the Chisinau City Court given the newly emerged circumstances. The case in which Vlad Filat was accused of passive corruption and influence peddling was tried in breach of the European Convention and was obviously started and judged in order to remove the ex-premier from the political arena. “This way, we urge civil society and representatives of embassies to follow the path covered by this application, the correctness of the aleatory distribution of the case and the examination itself,” stated the lawyer.
