Moldova’s Ex-President Dodon Indicted for Corruption

The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office in Chisinau on Thursday indicted former president Igor Dodon for passive corruption, accepting financing from a criminal organisation and illicit enrichment.

Prosecutors said in June 2019 he received between 600,000 and one million US dollars from the former head of the Democratic Party and oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc and his trusted man, Serghei Iaralov, both leaders of an organised crime group.

“The mentioned amount was claimed by Igor Dodon for payment of the current expenses of the Party of Socialists in Moldova, PSRM, including payment of the salaries of the employees of the same party,” the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release.

In a video leaked in 2019, Plahotniuc hands Dodon a black plastic bag containing a large amount of money in the lobby of a hotel Plahotniuc owned.

Dodon does not take the bag but tells Plahotniuc that it should be given to a Socialist Party deputy and Dodon’s right-hand man.

That black plastic bag, called “Kuliok” [Russian for bag], later became the symbol of corruption at the highest level in Moldova. Dodon’s file on this alleged act was then called the “Kuliok” case.

The prosecutors claim that the sum was collected from Plahotniuc and Laralov so that, as Moldova’s president, he would negotiate favourable conditions for Plahotniuc with Russia regarding the creation of a governing coalition in Moldova between the PDM and the Socialists.

At the same time, the prosecutors say Dodon was to negotiate in Moscow for the release of Plahotniuc from criminal liability for pending cases under the management of Russian law enforcement for drug trafficking and organised crime.

Dodon, who is now under house arrest, rejected the accusations against him as political.

“I plead totally innocent and we will prove it in court. It’s a 100-per-cent political process, sewn with yellow thread [the ruling pro-Western party’s colours],” he wrote on Facebook.

Dodon claims prosecutors used as evidence in the file rigged and illegal recordings made three years ago by Plahotniuc – who “fled the country, and the state was removed from the captivity of his oligarchic clans.”

Justice Minister Sergiu Litvinenco, stated that it is good that the “Kuliok” case was being sent to court, even if for now it only concerns Dodon. He said he expectsed the same treatment for Plahotniuc.

“I agree with the logic of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office that if you took a bribe, then another gave a bribe, both equally are liable to criminal liability,” he said.