​SUPREME COURT CHAIRMAN TO STAY IN CUSTODY 72 HOURS

Ion Druta, Chairman of the Moldovan Supreme Court of Justice, was detained by the National Anti-Corruption Center (NACC) on Wednesday and will now stay in custody 72 hours on suspicion of illicit enrichment.

The Prosecutor General's Office has reported that his home and office room were searched, and that detention, as a measure of restraint, was chosen “because there are grounds to suspect that if at large, Ion Druta may influence on witnesses”.

The criminal case against the top-ranked Moldovan judge was started on the ground of the data presented by the Information and Security Service (ISS). Proceeding from the data, the law enforcement revealed a striking difference between what the Druta family indicated in their annual statements of income and the cost of the property they obtained in 2016-2019.

Ion Druta was presented to the Parliament for approval as a Supreme Court Chairman on April 25, 2018 upon completion of a corresponding contest, in which he was the only candidate. So, he easily received a mandate of Supreme Court Chairman for 4 years.

In June 2019, when power changed in the republic, Druta as well as the entire leadership of the Chisinau Court were dismissed from their posts following a shocking statement made by a rank and file judge. However, Druta challenged his dismissal with the Chisinau Appeals Court [CAC, second-instance], and already a month later he returned into his chair of the Supreme Court Head.

It is noteworthy that yet before his detention, Ion Druta announced his volunteer resignation from the high post – allegedly because such demand was heard at the general meeting of Moldovan judges held last Friday. By the way, Prime Minister Maya Sandu and Minister of Justice Olesea Stamati called the decisions of that general meeting “illegitimate with respect to the resignation of the current composition of the Superior Council of Magistracy”.

Ion Druta is the Chairman of the country’s only civil-society organization of such profile – the Association of Judges of the Republic of Moldova.

According to the magistrate.md website, in 2018 civil servant Ion Druta received an official salary of 419 thousand lei [the country’s official average salary size is only approaching to 7,000 lei a month, or some 85,000 lei per year], and his wife – 229 thousand lei. Plus he received 5 thousand lei for lectures at a university. The Supreme Court Chairman is the owner of a land plot and a dwelling house (worth about 1.8 million lei each), of a big apartment in Chisinau (387 thousand lei), and two cars.