Ex-president flees Transnistria as parliament strips him of immunity

Ex-president flees Transnistria as parliament strips him of immunity
By Iulian Ernst in Bucharest June 29, 2017

Former President Evgheni Shevchuk has left Transnistria after lawmakers in the Moldovan separatist republic stripped him of his immunity at the request of head prosecutor Anatoli Guretski. The former president is under investigation in five criminal cases related to embezzlement and abuse of office. 

Shevchuk was ousted in the 2016 presidential election, and his successor Vadim Krasnoselsky’s Obnovlenie party, the political arm of Sheriff economic group, has also controlled the parliament since 2015. 

Shevchuk claimed, in a Facebook post on June 28, that the cases are purely political revenge and described the process as a “soap opera”. 

The official news agency of Transnistria, novostiPMR.com, provided a detailed outline of the investigations as described by Guretski to the parliament. 

Shevchuk is suspected of siphoning money off from the budget by having money paid for natural gas by end-users to the state budget channeled through an intermediary fund he controlled personally. He is also suspected of siphoning money off from alcohol producer Biochim, and smuggling goods into the country — an activity which which Guretski  says eventually ended in Ukraine and Moldova taking over control of the checkpoints along the Transnistria-Ukraine border. Finally, the prosecutor claims Shevchuk dismissed officials who investigated frauds linked to him while he was president, and bribed public servants to testify in his favour.

“According to the law, it is possible to carry out investigative measures and bring to justice a person who enjoys immunity, including the former head of state, with the permission of the supreme representative body of power,” parliament speaker Alexander Shcherba said on June 28, according to a parliament statement. “Today, at a plenary meeting, the Supreme Council voted in favour of depriving Yevgeny Shevchuk of his immunity by a qualified majority.”

The head prosecutor also said that Shevchuk had left the territory of Transnistria, most likely having crossed the Dniester river to Moldova during the night.

This was confirmed by Shevchuk himself in another Facebook post early on June 29. The former president wrote that while leaving the Transnistrian capital Tiraspol by car, he noticed that he was being escorted by black jeeps. “I took some prompt decisions … I took a taxi to Moldova,” he wrote. “For those interested and my supporters, there will soon be a detailed explanation of the absurdity … of yesterday's action.”

Shevchuk has been accused in the past of corruption connected to exports of electricity to Moldova. Moldova’s imports of electricity from Cuciurgan have been the subject of speculation and media investigations, and there were allegations of massive fraud during the 2016 presidential campaign in Transnistria which saw Shevchuk ousted from his position.

Shevchuk, who also served as head of the executive and was formally in charge of handling Russian aid, was accused by Krasnoselsky and the Obnovlenie party of siphoning off around $100mn. His opponents claimed Shevchuk used Energokapital, the company that intermediates the import of gas from Russia and the export of electricity to Moldova. However, Shevchuk denied the allegations.

 

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