“Vlad Filat never liked me, but this is not a reason for campaigning against me,” Prosecutor General Valeriu Zubko said in Parliament on Friday while being questioned, Info-Prim Neo reports. Valeriu Zubco said the Prosecutor General’s Office must be independent, especially from the executive because most of the smuggling-related and other offences are committed there, and from the legislature. “The Prosecutor General’s Office is the target of a broad misinformation campaign aimed at disseminating rumors about me. Not only my authority, but also the authority of the institution is undermined this way. I cooperated with Mihai Ghimpu when he was Acting President. I have good cooperation relations with Marian Lupu. Regretfully, I cannot say I was supported by the Premier,” said Valeriu Zubko. Presenting his report, the prosecutor said that he considers the Prosecutor General’s Office should be outside political battles. “The obstruction of my work started shortly after I was appointed to the post. I do not intend to transform my report into public settling of accounts. There are many criminal cases involving lawmakers, officials of the Government, the Customs Service, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Health, and of state-run companies,” said Valeriu Zubko. He did not give names, saying he will do it only within a parliamentary commission of inquiry if the legislature sets it up. The prosecutor said he does not understand why the Premier demanded that he be dismissed as the Prosecutor General’s Office acted in accordance with the law in the case of the raider attacks on banks. “The Prime Minister’s demand is not within the law. Such demands in the democratic countries are unimaginable,” he said, stressing the Prosecutor General’s Office did what it had to in the case of the raider attacks. He added such attacks should have been prevented by other institutions, like the Ministry of the Interior, the Security and Information Service, and the Center for Combating Corruption and Economic Crime. Valeriu Zubko informed that in 2010-2011 the Prosecutor General’s Office investigated 16 cases concerning the smuggling of more than 3 million packs of cigarettes that involved customs inspectors and lawmakers, while in 2010 - 182 cases of tax evasion that also involved government officials. Last year, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office received 103 applications concerning offenses committed by police officers. The prosecutors said that police employees had been also involved in cases of torture and ill-treatment, illegal tapping of phones, trafficking in persons, procuring and other offenses. In the end, he said will not allow transforming the Prosecutor General’s Office into a cudgel in the hands of the politicians. Valeriu Zubko was questioned in Parliament at the request of Speaker Marian Lupu after Prime Minister Vlad Filat demanded that the prosecutor be dismissed because he acted nonprofessionally in the case of the raider attacks.