Moldova President Was Wiretapped by Former Regime

Moldova’s pro-Western President, Maia Sandu, was the victim of politically motivated police harassment, after prosecutors during the regime of the now fugitive oligarch, Vlad Plahotniuc, ordered her to be followed and wiretapped, a document leaked to the media has shown.

It says former prosecutor Dumitru Raileanu ordered her surveillance because she allegedly urged Moldovan citizens to riot and overthrow the then government.

“Sandu on social networks urges citizens to mass disorder and to overthrow or change by violence the constitutional order,” the prosecutor said, giving the green light to track her.

Before Plahotniuc fled Moldova in mid-June 2019, Sandu and her Action and Solidarity Party, PAS, were in opposition, at first extra-parliamentary and then, after the February 2019 elections, in parliament.

Criminal investigation bodies also wanted to determine the circle of her close collaborators who would prepare subversive actions against the then government.

They suspected Sandu of “holding meetings with various people in the criminal world” to overthrow the government of Pavel Filip.

“Data reasonably lead to a conclusion that she will receive from suspects, or will send them, relevant information, for the criminal case [of overthrowing the government],” prosecutor Raileanu added, in his motivation for ordering surveillance and wiretapping.

Raileanu is being prosecuted in a case opened on September 2, 2019, by the current interim general prosecutor, Dumitru Robu, for the illegal collection of information protected by law about people’s personal lives without those persons’ consent.

He is also being investigated for using special technical means to obtain hidden information and violating the right to secrecy of telephone conversations, in violation of the law.

Raileanu says he just followed the orders of his superior, Valeriu Cojocaru, the former chief head of the Interior Ministry department in charge of surveillance.

“These are cheap procedures [the leaks] to present some documents out of the actual context. The authorized measure was legal, as it was provided by law and was based on the proposal of a representative of a state institution,” he told Ziarul de Garda newspaper on Thursday.

Sandu has issued no reaction so far but she previously made a series of statements condemning this type of behaviour on the part of the police during the government of Filip, from the Democratic Party, led de facto by Plahotniuc, and under the Ion Chicu government, ruled de facto by the former pro-Russian president, Igor Dodon.

According to a media investigation, on the last day of Filip’s cabinet, on June 14, 2019, over 600 draft ordinances, proceedings, minutes, court decisions and authorization warrants were issued against the pro-European opposition leaders, journalists and activists.