Alexander Petkov, a member of the previous Moldovan Parliament, stated at a news conference in Infotag today that serious provocations against protesters in Chisinau are possible.

 

According to him, well-trained fighters have been prepared in the private bodyguard agency Argus-S, belonging to oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, for provocations during massive gatherings. The arrest of “Our Home is Moldova” (OHM) party leader Grigore Petrenco was perhaps the brightest illustration of this agency’s activities.

 

Petcov referred to two examples of holding peaceful actions of protest – on September 6 and September 13, when behind the backs of usual policemen, one could see a big group of very well-built guys dressed in the uniforms of the Fulger task-force battalion and with Fulger equipment, but looking strikingly different from usual ‘legal’ officers.

 

“Those guys looked too ‘pedigree’ to be usual servicemen. I am sure those were Argus-S men. They are not cops, but elite athletes dressed in police uniforms. They were specially trained to make provocations during actions of protest, and they demonstrated their skills in the case with Petrenco. The politician and 8 his supporters were expertly bruised up and detained. And during the massive rally on September 13, Colonel Gheorghe Cavcaliuc [Chief of the MoI General Police Inspectorate], who stood behind the central rostrum in the main square for some time, went inside the Government Building at one moment, and seconds after that, several hundred men in special equipment run out of the building, and froze, as if waiting for an order. What logic was there in such behavior, if both rallies were purely peaceful? There may be only one answer: they stood ready for sharpening the situation – up to bloodshed”, said Alexander Petkov.

 

He said that yet in January 2013, being a parliament deputy, he came into possession of documents, signed by then-Minister of the Interior, on the criminal litigations started against Argus-S on suspicion of money laundering, tax evasion, and creating of a criminal community.

 

Anna Ursachi, Grigore Petrenco’s lawyer, said at the news conference that in 2013 the Information and Security Service (ISS) organized an operative surveillance over Argus-S bosses, and in one of its secret reports the ISS even wrote that this agency “promotes the growth of criminalization of the Moldovan society”.

 

In her opinion, Argus-S is “an armed formation rendering specific services to an oligarch, who controls all spheres of life in Moldova and a part of the country’s power agencies”.

 

“The Argus-S leadership includes former and incumbent high-ranked officers of the Ministry of the Interior. Besides the above-mentioned Colonel Cavcaliuc [aged 32], the Agency is run by former Director of the National Anti-Corruption Center Valentin Mejinschi, former MoI Deputy Minister Valentin Zubic, ex-head of a key MoI department Alexandru Jizdan, and other aces. It is possible to say confidently that Plahotniuc’s men have been planted into the MoI structure and coordinate the Ministry’s policy and activities. Our conclusion is: this is extremely dangerous for the Moldovan statehood and impermissible from the viewpoint of a law-governed state”, stated Anna Ursachi.

 

Petcov and Ursachi requested Moldova’s development partners and the heads of foreign diplomatic missions working in Moldova to pay a closest attention to the above-mentioned facts, which they believe are indicative of the presence of a real threat to the very existence of the Republic of Moldova.