The mayor of Balti town Renato Usatyi, who heads the Political Party “Our Party”, in the morning of July 25 went to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office to discuss only with journalists. At the suggestion of his lawyers, he didn’t meet with prosecutors for being questioned about the statements he made last week, when he said that the first deputy chairman of the Democratic Party Vlad Plahotniuc offered him money to leave the country or even politics. Renato Usatyi told the journalists that the prosecutors pretend to be investigating his statements, but he does not have confidence in these, IPN reports.

Lawyer Ana Ursachi, who accompanied Renato Usatyi, told the journalists that the statements made by the politician weren’t recorded in accordance with the procedure and all the proofs that he can provide will not be taken into account. From her viewpoint, the prosecutors do not actually investigate these statements because, if a correct investigation had been held, Vlad Plahotniuc would have been invited to questioning too.

In a TV program, the leader of the “Our Party” Renato Usatyi said that Vlad Plahotniuc offered him US$1.5 million for being absent from Moldova during September – November. He noted that he had two meetings with Vlad Plahotniuc where this told him that he and Andrei Nastase, the leader of the Party “Platform Dignity and Truth”, thwarted his plans and he thus could not become Prime Minister, and that he has a plan for October, when large-scale protests would be mounted, and Usatyi should leave Moldova.

Neither the Democratic Party nor the Prosecutor General’s Office commented yet on these statements.