Prosecutor General asks that Valeriu Pasat be issued with passport

The former minister of defense and director of the Security and Information Service Valeriu Pasat could return soon to Moldova. The Prosecutor General's Office (PG) asked the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications to legalize the passport of Pasat so that he could be heard in Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the PG's press service. Recently, Valeriu Pasat addressed an open letter to Moldova's new Prosecutor General Valeriu Zubko, asking that the two legal cases opened against him in 2006 while he was in custody be sent to court. In his letter, Pasat said the Moldovan authorities refuse to issue him with a new passport instead of the old one that expired in December 2008. Thus, he cannot travel to other countries on business and cannot return home to see his parents. Valeriu Pasat was arrested on March 11, 2005. He had been in detention for about two years and was then amnestied. He is now in Moscow. Two of the cases against him, in which he is accused of prejudicing the state by selling military warplanes and rockets, have been examined two times, including at the Supreme Court of Justice. Every time, they were sent back. In July 2009, the Chisinau Court of Appeals examined them for the third time and confirmed again that the former minister was not guilty. The other two cases opened while he was in custody in 2006, in which he is accused of smuggling armament and of attempted coup at the instructions of the Kremlin, were not sent to court.