Society

EX-PREMIER VLAD FILAT RELEASED FROM PRISON PREMATURELY

04 december, 2019

Moldova's former Prime Minister Vlad Filat, arrested in 20115 and jailed for 9 years, has been released from custody prematurely on Tuesday by decision of the Sectorul Ciocana Court of Chisinau, his lawyer Ion Vizdoaga announced to journalists.

Oleg Pantea, Press Secretary of the MoJ National Administration of Penitentiary Institutions, has confirmed that the Penitentiary Department had already fulfilled the court decision.

Last September, Vlad Filat's 9-year term was reduced by 685 days i.e. approximately by 1 year and 9 months. The ground for that was the judgment by the European Court for Human Rights concerning Filat's bad detention conditions. According to the Moldovan Code of Criminal Procedure, persons who were detained in inhuman or/and humiliating conditions for 10 or more days, may demand a reduction of detention term or a monetary compensation. Vlad Filat applied to the ECHR with a complaint about the violation of his right to freedom and to personal integrity, about bad detention conditions and about the violation of his right to inviolability of private life.

The ECHR met his inquiry partly, after which his lawyers once again addressed to the Chisinau court demanding an early release from prison upon the serving of two-thirds of the detention term. With an account of the above-mentioned reduction [685 days], Filat has served the required two-thirds for liberation.

Vlad Filat was arrested on October 15, 2015, and in June 2016 he was sentenced to 9 years with the confiscation of personal property, and with prohibition to hold public posts for 5 years after release, and with a fine of 60,000 lei (about US$3 thousand). He was charged of a major corruption, benefitting from position and influence, accepting bribes (cash and presents) total worth US$250 million from currently fugitive business tycoon Ilan Shor.

According to the second criminal litigation, which was initiated against him in February 2019, Filat was accused of a particularly grand money laundering. This investigation is still continuing. Vlad Filat and his lawyers regard both cases as political ones, claiming that oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc stood behind them.

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