Independent Journalism Center Provides Legal Aid for Victor Sofroni

The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) provides legal aid to Victor Sofroni, one of the founders of Rezina's weekly independent newspaper ‘Cuvântul’ [The Word’] and director of ‘ImpulsTV’ from Soldanesti. The journalist filed a complaint with the court against the order on the commencement of the contravention proceeding initiated by the Prosecutor's Office from Rezina. Prosecutors accuse Victor Sofroni for making intentionally a false police call, while the journalist only asked police officers to verify the information about a possible crime, transmitted by anonymous sources.

The journalist explained that an anonymous person sent him some pictures of a body via the Viber application at the end of 2017, and informed him that the pictures were made in the forest strip at the border between Rezina and Orhei districts. In order to verify this information, the journalist contacted the Head of Police from Soldanesti who notified the Rezina Police Inspectorate. The Police Task Force verified the scene of the alleged murder and did not find any body. Subsequently it was found that the pictures that were sent to the journalist were taken from a website and were related to a case that happened in 2016 in the Russian Federation.

As a result of this finding, in January 2018, Rezina Police initiated a criminal case for hooliganism against the journalist Victor Sofroni, and the Rezina Prosecutor's Office closed the criminal case in July, and re-qualified the accusation under the provisions of the Contravention Code and charged him with ‘making intentionally a false police call’.

The journalist risks to be fined but does not agree with the prosecutors’ decision and he reached out to the court to protect his rights. The Independent Journalism Center has offered to provide legal aid, and his case will be brought to the court by lawyer Vitalie Zama.
‘As the examination of the extra-judicial complaint took place without issuing an order, as required by the law, the court sent the materials with the journalist's complaint back to the Prosecutor's Office of Rezina district, to issue the order and correct the error in question’, told us Vitalie Zama after attending the first hearing, which took place on 13 September.

Previously, media NGOs qualified the reason for initiating this process and the legal classification of the alleged ‘contravention’ as absurd, given that the journalist Victor Sofroni just asked the police to verify the information he received from an unknown persons, and requested to close the case.

We remind that the Department for Media Law and Policy of the Independent Journalism Centre (IJC) provides free legal consultation to journalists and media outlets of the Republic of Moldova. Thus, IJC aims to help identify and solve the legal issues of the media. Applicants can benefit from quality legal aid, copies of the laws in force, information about other sources of necessary aid, etc.