Moldovan protesters against alleged election fraud in April were subjected to torture, ill treatment and even beaten to death, but prosecutors and judges failed to follow up on police brutality, the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, has said.
The council's report is based on a fact-finding mission carried out in July by experts from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), a specialised arm of the Strasbourg-based body of which Moldova is a member.
It was released on Monday (14 December), after the current pro-European government in Chisinau agreed to its publication.
The document concludes that there are "credible and consistent" allegations of police ill-treatment of suspects, following the short-lived victory of the Communist Party in April elections. The initial ballot was re-cast in July, with four pro-European parties winning a slim majority and forming a coalition government.
In one case, identified as "A," who died on 8 April 2009 due to injuries all over his body inflicted by a "blunt object," prosecutors interviewed policemen only as witnesses.
"The accounts of certain other persons who had apparently witnessed what had happened appeared to have been disregarded for several weeks before the prosecuting authorities decided to take their allegations into consideration and interview them on the matter. No attempt had apparently been made to seize weapons using 'special means,' which may have been used," the report notes.
Lawyers of A's family complained that they could not gain access to the key elements of the investigation, especially forensic evidence. They also suspected they had been given misleading information, in particular regarding the cause of death.
Other men, who survived detention and had medical evidence of ill treatment, also felt short in seeing justice done to their torturers, which tried to extract "statements" from them through beatings.
"Many persons interviewed also alleged that they had been hit with truncheons and kicked when going through a 'corridor' of police officers before entering a police establishment or transfer," the documents reads.
One woman, identified as "B", apprehended in the night of 7 to 8 April 2009, claimed she was dragged by her hair along the pavement, kicked in the right thigh, punched on the back of the neck and that her head was struck against a hard object. She was admitted to the Emergency Hospital on the next day with cranial trauma.
As with the other cases, the investigation was carried out by a military prosecutor, who interviewed her in hospital.
"However, at the time of the visit, the prosecuting authorities had still not interviewed the two suspects and had made no attempts to identify potential witnesses. Instead, they had requested an internal inquiry by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, naming the alleged victim and the two suspects. The response consisted of two undated statements from the suspects who denied any wrongdoing."
The report recommends setting up an independent agency to investigate cases where ill-treatment by law enforcement officials is alleged.
Methods used by a special police unit known as "Fulger" should be more closely supervised, it said.
"In many cases prosecutors had not taken all reasonable steps in good time to secure evidence and had failed to make genuine efforts to identify those responsible," the CPT said.
A parliamentary inquiry into the April events, comprising of international observers as well as members of the Communist party has been established. But Council of Europe experts ask for the judicial evidence and trials to be carried out with priority over the political one.
Eight months on from the riots, Moldova's pro-European government has pledged to shine some light on the matter. On the political front, it has failed however to gather the necessary support in the Communist Party, now in opposition, in order to secure a three-fifths majority in the Parliament necessary to elect a president.
source: EUobserver
