​ NACC DETAINS CHISINAU DEPUTY MAYOR AND TWO MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS

On Wednesday, National Anti-Corruption Center officers detained Deputy Mayor of Chisinau Vlad Cotet, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Architecture, City Development and Land Relations, the Department's Chief Inspector, and two private individuals - all on suspicions of corruption.

Bogdan Zumbreanu, Director of the NACC Criminal Prosecution Department, said at a news conference that since Wednesday early morning, the Center officers undertook dozens of searches in the suspects' offices, homes and cars.

"They are incriminated of bribery and extortion, forging of official documents, abusing of position. There are numerous facts of abuses at issuing documents on real estate, on the changing of the legal statuses of land plots granted by the city, etc. So far, the biggest bribe detected and proved with documents is 12,000 euros", said Bogdan Zumbreanu.

In his words, Deputy Mayor Cotet felt unwell during his detention, so he was delivered to hospital.

"If medical doctors decide that the patient needs treatment in stationary hospital conditions, then we will place guards to the doors of his ward. If not - we will put him to the NACC remand prison, like all other suspects. Since the beginning of 2016, we have already started 10 criminal procedures on charges of abusing office at issuing permissions and privatization of both housing and non-dwelling objects. Now all of them will be united into one big "municipal litigation"", said Bogdan Zumbreanu.