ALEXANDER STOIANOGLO SAYS THAT FORMER ISS DIRECTOR HAS RECEIVED SUSPENDED SENTENCE

The former Director of the Information and Security Service (ISS), Vasile Botnari, has been sentenced to a suspended punishment for his illicit expulsion of 7 citizens of the Republic of Turkey from Moldova, Prosecutor General Alexander Stoianoglo stated on the local television on Tuesday night.

In his words, Botnari stood court a month ago on the case of the expulsion of the seven Turkish teachers who had worked in Moldova.

“The verdict is secret. Today, I requested the court to make public at least a brief account of that verdict. I have no idea how much he has received, but this is a conditional sentence. Besides this, Botnari has repaid 125 thousand euros – the sum of the compensation paid by the Republic of Moldova to the expelled Turkish teachers by decision of the European Court for Human Rights”, said the Prosecutor General.

According to him, Vasile Botnari covered also the ECHR costs and compensated to the Moldovan State the 380 thousand lei (about 20 thousand euros) for the special airplane hired to deliver the Turkish teachers to their home country.

The Prosecutor General said that Vasile Botnari had fully admitted his guilt and had collaborated with the investigation.

“May be, the former ISS Director’s actions were influenced from the outside. Botnari is the only figure in the case of Turkish teachers’ expulsion. So far, there are no other people involved in that case. There were other defendants, but we excluded them from the criminal case, for we thought it would be not correct to bring them to responsibility in conditions when the officers were fulfilling somebody’s orders”, explained Alexander Stoianoglo.

The Prosecutor General’s announcement caused a public echo. Social network users were quick to find out that Botnari had received a two-year suspended sentence. They expressed indignation about the secrecy of this whole affair and that the ISS ex-chief has been punished so mildly.