To Return the Money to the State: The Ministry of Justice Filed a Lawsuit against the Former SIS Chief  

The state demands to reimburse the sum of 50 thousand euros, which was paid according to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the case of Turkish teachers’ expulsion. Vasile Botnari, who was then head of the Security and Intelligence Service, must reimburse the state’s spending. The Ministry of Justice filed a retroactive lawsuit against Botnari. Information about this was published by anticoruptie.md. TV8 journalists contacted the lawyer of the former head of the Security and Intelligence Service, but the human rights defender said that he knew nothing about the case. According to data from the anticoruptie.md portal, the Ministry of Justice sued the former head of the Information and Security Service to recover the sum of 50 thousand euros that the state had paid as compensation after the ECHR had issued a judgement condemning the country in June 2019. The application was filed on 11 August and the hearing is scheduled for the first month of next year. Journalists contacted Vasile Botnari’s lawyer to find out more details, but heard back that he knew nothing about it. 4 years ago, the ECHR recognized that Moldova had violated the rights of Turkish citizens who were forcibly removed from the country. Then the government was obliged to pay 25 thousand euros to each of the five Turkish citizens who had appealed to the European court. Only 3 years later, the Migration Inspectorate announced that the documents according to which the Turkish teachers had been expelled from Moldova were reviewed and cancelled. The former SIS head Vasile Botnari was the only person who was judged in this case. He pleaded guilty in 2020 and received a suspended sentence. He paid a compensation of 125 thousand euros, set by the ECHR, and another 380 thousand lei for the charter plane on which the teachers had flown to Turkey. In September 2018, 7 Turkish teachers of the secondary school “Horizon” were recognized as undesirable and forcibly extradited from our country in less than 24 hours. They were accused of having links to an Islamic group. Amnesty International, together with other NGOs, condemned their expulsion, claiming that their rights had been violated.