Businessman Leonid Dugari, who is supported by the public association “Realitate si Adevar” (“Reality and Truth”), in a news conference at IPN announced that he is the victim of a group of police officers who, helped by prosecutors, pressed him into closing his business in Moldova.

Leonid Dugari told the journalists that pressure on him started to be exerted when he refused to pay money for being offered protection. Last year, the police investigated criminally his wife, who is the commercial director of a company. In order to close the investigation, the police officers told him to pay money.

The businessman refused and officers of the Internal Security Division appeared soon in his apartment and office. They seized, illegally according to him, €500 de euro, three computers, a number of mobile phones, including those that belonged to his children, and jewels. Leonid Dugari said that it is two years since then, but he cannot find out why those goods were confiscated. They also seized then documents without which he could not work.

The businessman also said the police officers and prosecutors looked for witnesses who would accuse him of committing different violations so that legal action could be taken against him. “We have no protection in this country. I now understand why the people go abroad,” he stated.

The leader of the public association “Realitate si Adevar” Veaceslav Balacci told the same news conference that they will continue to monitor this case and will call on civil society, the mass media and embassies working in Moldova to also follow this case. The Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor General’s Office are asked to penalize the employees involved in these illegalities. Otherwise, they will be accused of complicity.