Shocking images: Ill-treatment of young people last April lasted for several minutes only

The maltreatment of the young people in the Great National Assembly Square on the night of April 8, 2009 lasted for less than 15 minutes. From 00.55 until 01.05, a group of young people had been beaten by men in civies, including employees of the General Police Commissariat, and then taken to the Emergency Hospital by a jeep. Mayor General of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca presented images taken that night by the video cameras fixed on the Government Building at a news conference on April 1, which he held jointly with Acting President Mihai Ghimpu, Info-Prim Neo reports. The videos show a group of peaceful protesters in Chisinau's central square who had been surrounded by police officers and then beaten cruelly. It happened at the intersection of Pushkin St and Stefan cel Mare Blvd. at about 01.00. According to Dorin Chirtoaca, several of the attackers were identified as police officers - employees of the General Police Commissariat, the Criminal Police Division, the Antidrug Division, which are all subdivisions of the Ministry of the Interior. The mayor said a part of those who appeared in the images were later named heads of local police stations. Among the attackers were former Deputy Police Commissioner of Chisinau Iacob Gumenita and former Commissioner of Botanica district Pavel Voicu. “There was a real massacre on the night of April 8. Those who organized it will be identified,” Mihai Ghimpu said in the conference. According to him, images taken by those video cameras had been used in the film “Attack on Moldova”. Asked why these images were made public only now, Mihai Ghimpu said they had been hidden. He avoided saying if the Prosecutor Generals' Office has these videos. The videos also show a body that could be Valeriu Boboc, according to Ghimpu and Chirtoaca. The body was taken away by a gray car. The parliamentary commission of inquiry and the Prosecutor Generals' Office have not yet made known the results of the investigations they carried out, but said will do it soon.