Reports
INDEPENDENT MAYOR CLAIMS COMMUNIST AUTHORITIES ARE INTIMIDATING HIM
Chisinau. Genadie Ravei, Mayor of the Cimiseni village (Criuleni raion), maintains the Moldovan authorities would not cease their attempts to intimidate him: since 2005, Chisinau initiated 5 administrative cases against him and two criminal cases.
Ravei convened a news conference in Infotag today and said that since 2007, thorough checks of the Cimiseni Primaria’s activities were undertaken by the Audit Chamber, the General Prosecutor's Office, and the State Department for Construction.
Last year, a criminal action was initiated against him on charges of exceeding office and of selling out two public artesian wells in the village – allegedly without Village Council’s consent. As a result, in June 2008 the Criuleni Raion Count ruled he was guilty of exceeding office, and sentenced him to 4 years in prison.
Ravei said that on the eve of the verdict, Criuleni Court judge Eugen Sanduta phoned him at about 11 pm and stated he was being pressed on “from the above… Sanduta said that if I give 5 thousand euros to him, I would not be arrested in the courtroom upon the announcement of the verdict”.
Ravei explained he had been in a terrible situation then: his wife was at a Moscow hospital with their disabled child, and the father had to take care of the other child, who would otherwise remain at home all alone. To avoid arrest in the courtroom, he had to give the €5,000 to the judge.
In Ravei’s words, when the prosecutor interrogated village council members, they told him the artesian wells had been privatized fully legally, through organizing a contest, and with the blessing of the Raion Council, “but the prosecutor, seeing that the couldn’t dig any other reasons for accusing me, decided to accuse me of exceeding my authority. I challenged that verdict with the Chisinau Appeals Chamber, but on September 24 the Chamber left in force the decision of the first judicial instance. As I learned from my unofficial sources, parliamentarian Vadim Mishing of the Communist Party phoned to the Appeals Chamber and warned that the first instance’s decision must be left in force”.
The unbending village mayor has already filed with the Supreme Court of Justice a challenge against the Appeals Chamber’s ruling.
Genadie Ravei was Cimiseni Mayor from the Moldova Noastra Alliance in 2003-2007, and since 2007 he has been an independent mayor.
