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An End Was Put to the Case of the Journalist Victor Sofroni. The State Will Pay the Court Costs

19 April 2019
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În Moldova
The prosecutor Anatolie Maliuta from Rezina Prosecutor’s Office admitted the complaint of Victor Sofroni, director of Impuls TV from Soldanesti, on the annulment of an item from the order for closing the criminal prosecution, making the state pay the court costs incurred during the criminal case.
After checking the materials of the criminal case, the Rezina Prosecutor’s Office on 18 March 2019 ordered the termination of the criminal prosecution of the journalist Victor Sofroni within the criminal case, due to the lack of elements of contravention, and ordered to close the criminal case.
In two days, by its decision of 20 March 2019, Orhei Court (based in Rezina) also terminated the contravention proceedings initiated by Rezina Prosecutor’s Office in July 2018 against Victor Sofroni. The judge Veronica Cupcea issued such decision due to the lack of elements of contravention.
Although Rezina Prosecutor’s Office terminated the criminal prosecution, the journalist was the one to pay the court costs.
Sofroni challenged this decision at Rezina Prosecutor’s Office on 29 March 2019, and the prosecutor Maliuta who examined the case, on 9 April ordered to lay these costs on state. Maliuta substantiated his order by the fact that the Orhei Court terminated the contravention proceedings against the journalist and that Sofroni did not have the status of a convicted person.



Note that on 4 January 2018, the Rezina police initiated a criminal case against Sofroni. On 29 June 2018, however, criminal proceedings were terminated: the prosecutor Ludmila Devderea from Rezina in her ordinance mentioned that there were no crime deeds, stipulated by the Criminal Code. Then, on 3 July 2018, contravention proceedings were initiated against Sofroni for ‘deliberate false police call’, which is covered by the Contravention Code.
Story of this case began at the end of 2017, when an anonymous person sent some pictures of a corpse via the Viber application to Victor Sofroni, informing him that the images were made in the forest strip at the border between Rezina and Orhei districts. In order to check the information, the journalist contacted the head of the Soldanesti Police Inspectorate, who, in turn, passed on the request to the Rezina Police Inspectorate. The police task force inspected the alleged crime scene and did not detect any corpse. Subsequently, it was found that the pictures were taken from an Internet web page and were related to a case that took place in 2016 in the Russian Federation. The journalist was accused of a fake police call and a criminal case was initiated against him. 

 Foto: Cuvantul.md
 
 
 

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