Former mayor of Bacioi investigated for abuse of power and forgery

The former mayor of Bacioi commune of Chisinau municipality is investigated for illegally allocating plots. The same case involves the former cadastral engineer, the land engineer and the former secretary of the local council, Info-Prim Neo reports. Prosecutor Valeriu Bodean, of the Prosecutor General’s Office, told a news conference that while holding the post of mayor in 2003-2011, the official ordered allocating plots for construction of over 1.8 hectares overall to about 30 persons, exceeding thus his authority as the local council did not make relevant decisions. Vitalie Briceag, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s Frauds Division, said that the former mayor is also accused of falsifying a local council decision, by including more names in the list of persons to which land was apportioned. The other functionaries involved in the illegalities countersigned the documents issued illegally. The damage to the local budget was assessed at about 1 million lei, based on the normative price of land, not the market value, which is higher. The plots were distributed to private individuals, including from other settlements. On December 14, the prosecutors indicted the former mayor and asked for an arrest warrant for 30 days. But their request was rejected by the judge. The judge’s decision was appealed to the Chisinau Court of Appeals. The ex-mayor faces 6 to 10 years in prison and may be banned from holding certain posts for a period of five years.