VEACESLAV PLATON LAWYERS MAINTAIN COURT IS BIASED TOWARDS THEIR CLIENT

The administration of justice with respect to prominent Moldovan businessman Veaceslav Platon is unfair and biased and is steered by the authorities, maintain his lawyers Alexandru Bodnariuc and Elena Leanca.

They convened a news conference on Thursday, during which Bodnariuc named as "a sheer circus" the examination of the Platon case at the Chisinau Appeals Court [second-instance].

"The CAC is now examining the first of the 3 cases started against our client. On this case, Veaceslav Platon was sentenced to 18 years in prison, and that verdict was made by Judge Galina Moscalciuc - that very Moscalciuc who has been behind bars herself since October 2018 on suspicion of creating a corruption scheme in the court where she worked. I believe that in such case the CAC Board should listen more carefully to the arguments of Mr. Platon and of his defense", said the lawyer.

Bodnariuc stated that in the first-instance court, Veaceslav Platon was deprived of the possibility to put questions to witnesses. Then he was stopped to be delivered to the courthouse for sessions. And at the final stage of the trial, sessions were held in the absence of the lawyers Platon had chosen. "We were counting on the Chisinau Appeals Court, where we thought we would be given the possibility to present our arguments and considerations, to summon witnesses and to ask questions. Of course, our client also had the right to speak. But the CAC Board Chairman Xenofont Ulianovschi invariably dismissed all our inquiries. For instance, the Board Chairman considered by himself our inquiries on challenging the Board. And though according to the law a challenged judge may not examine a challenge against himself, Xenofont Ulianovschi may", said the lawyer. Bodnariuc stated that the CAC had rejected all the defense's demands to carry out the expert examination of the documents included into the Platon case file.

"It may seem strange but the Court feels free to start expert examinations of documents or other details in the case of, say, Ilan Shor, and such examinations may last up to 6 months. But in our Platon case, judges immediately state "No!"", said Alexandru Bodnariuc, who is sure that the cases started against Veaceslav Platon are definitely a political enterprise and "a reprisal against a human being".

Lawyer Elena Leanca said that in defiance of legal procedures, Platon's meetings with his lawyers are video- and audio-taped, though such meetings must be strictly confidential.

"For more than 2.5 years, Mr. Platon has not been permitted to have meetings with his family, or receive parcels from them, and he is kept in a wet basement cell in the ancient Chisinau prison #13 [built in the 1850s]. He constantly suffers all kinds of pressure and humiliation - with inhuman detention conditions and bad treatment by personnel. Despite our numerous complaints sent to prison administration and personally to Prison Chief Igor Pantea, the situation would not change for such a long time", said Leanca.

Veaceslav Platon was declared by the Moldovan Prosecutor General's Office as an internationally wanted person in July 2016, and already a few hours later he was detained in Kiev city by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers. On August 30, in pursuance of the Kiev Court decision, Platon was delivered to Chisinau on board a private airplane, which, according to the lawyers, belonged to his former business partner Vlad Plahotniuc, who currently heads the ruling Democratic Party and is the 'executive coordinator' of the ruling coalition in Moldova.

In Chisinau, Platon was accused of involvement in and coordination of money theft from Banca de Economii [BEM, savings bank], in particular of his receiving and non-returning of bank credits totaling 800 million lei (US$20 million). Platon is also suspected of having a finger in the siphoning off more than US$20 billion from Russia over to offshore zones via Moldovan banks. Thus, former National Anti-Corruption Center (NACC) officer Mikhail Gofman told the law enforcement about the laundering of more than US$23 billion of the Russian origin through Moldovan banks. And the Russian Ministry of the Interior stated officially that in 2015 alone, US$10.9 billion was illicitly removed from Russia by using the "Moldovan scheme".

In that year, the Russian MoI published the list of 19 Russian banks involved in the so-called "Moldovan scheme" of money laundering. All in all, more than 700 billion Russian rubles were withdrawn, which sum is equivalent to US$49 billion according to then-exchange rates. That scheme involved also several Moldovan banks controlled by Veaceslav Platon.