REPORT OF THE INVESTIGATION COMMISSION ON THE ELUCIDATION OF THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE AFTER APRIL 5, 2009
V. 1   CONCLUSIONS
The Investigation Commission concludes:
· The pre-election context as well as the procedure of organizing the electoral campaign in April 2009 were marked by a number of problems: starting with setting of elections date and ending with some electoral propaganda problems on
the “silence” day and the Parliamentary Elections Day;
Amendment of electoral legislation and some legal acts on the eve of the election campaign was to prejudice the confidence of electoral candidates and voters; “the game rules” were changed without taking into account the recommendations of Venice Commission of the Council of Europe;
· The establishment of a Parliamentary Commission for Revising the Election Legislation is welcome, and it expresses its hope that the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR EOM that “encouraged the authorities from Moldova to apply the recommendations included in the Joined Opinions on the Election Code published in December 2007 and October 2008”, would be taken into account. “The following issues are of great concern:
o   Interdiction of pre-election alliances;
o   Restricting the right to hold the position of MP (member of the parliament) for the holders of multiple citizenship;
o   Minimum presence of 50% to consider the elections valid; and o Electoral threshold”.
· Few and insignificant appeals were submitted by electoral candidates during the election period, which proves that they agreed to the elections procedure and organization of electoral campaign or they were not active enough to draft appeals and promote those according to the procedure;
· Following the elections of 05 April 2009, the society has created a vivid perception that the elections were massively forged/rigged;
· The circumstances underlined in Chapter II of the Report contributed to a great extent to the elucidation of the social and political situation of the country, which resulted in large protests in April 2009;
· The number of participants in the protests of April 6 – 7, 2009 over-exceeded the expectations of the organizers, which is why the organizers did not always manage to handle the crowd. The situation became more serious due to the lack of sound amplification equipment, which impeded the management of the crowd.
Under such circumstances it was mandatory for the police and local public authority to offer all the necessary support to the organisers in order to not permit the worsening of the situation;
· On April 06, 2009, the great number of police officers placed in PMAN (the
leadership of MIA and its subdivisions being also there) did not undertake any
actions with regard to the aggressive people who were blocking the traffic on
Stefan cel Mare Boulevard and Banulescu-Bodoni Street and were committing
other illegal actions, in order to reinstate public order and initiate legal
proceedings against those people, but left them alone, thus, “encouraging” those
persons to participate in manifestations during the second day (7th of April 2009),
and eventually, to destroy the peaceful character of protests;
· Even if it was obvious already on April 06, 2009 that the manifestations of April
07, 2009 will gather a great number of participants, it seems that the police was
not adequately prepared for such events: a part of police officers had no necessary
equipment, there was no clear coordination of actions between different police
sub-divisions and other authorities (SPPS, SIS, Mayoralty, etc.), the permanent
communication inside the public order troops was not ensured, etc.;
· Lack of adequate coordination of actions of public order troops and lack of a
strategy for protecting the State’s edifices led to the fact that in some cases the
actions of authorities were provoking the crowd instead of calming it down. For
example, bringing the fire-fighters vehicle in front of protesters near the
Presidency provoked an explosion of violence on behalf of a great part of
participants; the attack of dispersing the protesters, which looked like a successful
idea at the beginning, but due to some apparently illiterate actions that followed,
resulted in an obvious increase of violence;
· The aggressive actions of the demonstrators were well-organized. This and the
unprofessional actions of the representatives of the government, including the
public order defense bodies, along with the objective inability to manage the
situation by the organizers of protests led to the destruction and devastation of
Moldovan Parliament and Presidency buildings;
· The number of employees of the law enforcement bodies involved in the
protection of State’s edifices on April 07, 2009 was bigger than the number of
aggressive participants. But even so, the authorities could not manage the
situation;
· Operative services of MIA and SIS could not fulfil their duties: being infiltrated
among the participants, the employees of these services did nothing to identify
and remove the aggressive persons and provocateurs from the crowd (almost all
heard persons claimed that there were provocateurs in the crowd, who were
disturbing the peaceful character of the demonstration). Even after the
demonstrations, the aggressive persons and provocateurs were not identified and
brought before court;
· The Adviser of the President ordered illegally the interruption of mobile
communication in the places where the demonstrations were held;
· The former President of the RM, Vladimir Voronin gave direct orders to the
employees of the MIA, by which he obviously exceeded his constitutional duties;
· There is a striking appearance that the night fires from the Parliamentary building started when the building was under the control of public order forces;
· Leaving the Parliamentary building at 20.00 on April 07, 2009 by the police and
its apparent leaving under the custody of participants was inopportune;
· The events of April 2009 cannot be considered as an attempt of coup d’état. This conclusion is also supported by experts. Anyway, such kind of qualification is
made exclusively by the Office of the Prosecutor General;
· The actions of police on the night of 7 to 8 April 2009 were disproportional and
illegal;
· Most persons were apprehended at random by police, in the absence of any
reasonable suspicions of committing illegal actions (contraventions or crimes), as
it was stipulated in Art. 247 of CAC and Art. 166 of CCP;
· Operative services of MIA failed to identify concrete persons guilty of violent
actions committed against their own colleagues from MIA system; legal
qualification of apprehended protesters’ actions was very different, although they
were charged with committing of similar actions committed under the same
circumstances; invocation of massive presence of drug addicts and drunk people
among the protesters was not confirmed by police records, being attested few
cases of drunkenness or the operative services failed again to apprehend the drunk
people; the police applied in a distorted manner and made abuse of force in the
apprehension procedure and during the custody of people; they admitted ill
treatment and applied torture towards the persons under their custody; they
violated almost all the procedural guarantees offered by the Constitution, national
legislation and relevant international documents ratified by the Republic of
Moldova.
· It has no evidence that would prove the implication of foreign factor in the
organization of events of April 2009;
· Due to the lack of concrete evidence regarding the cyber attack, it cannot decide
whether this attack constitutes an incontestable evidence of involvement of some
special services or foreign states in the attempt of “coup d’état”. Moreover, the
webpage of the Presidency of the Republic of Moldova represents “an
informational platform” and ensures the electronic connection of the Office of the
President with other institutions, hence, the eventual cyber attack cannot affect
“the security of the Republic of Moldova”;
· Invoking Article 32 of CCP for trying the actions at the police stations represents an extensive interpretation of norms of criminal process by the judges, which led to the violation of some important principles of criminal process: legality, observance of human rights, freedoms and dignity, inviolability of person, right to defence, public trial and free access to justice. Carrying out the trials in police stations can be qualified as a severe violation of Article 6 “Right to Equitable
Trial” of European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms;
· When examining the motions to apply the arrest as a preventive measure,
invoking of Art. 32 of CCP can be in a way justified; it is not clear what are the
legal reasons for examining the administrative causes at police stations; in this
case the work of judges being absolutely illegal;
· The solemn and public affirmation of judges that they ensured all the inherent
elements of a trial is disputed by persons who were tried in police stations;
· As for the criminal files related to the events of April 2009, the prosecutors acted randomly depending probably on the political indications of the leadership of the country during that period.