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Russian writer arrested in Moldova facing 8 yrs in jail

Bagirov, a writer and active blogger, was detained in Moldova June 16 for a period of 30 days

CHISINAU, October 12 (Itar-Tass) — Russian writer and blogger Eduard Bagirov, who was arrested in Moldova at the beginning of summer, is facing a prospect of four to eight years in jail, Maria Vieru, a spokeswoman for the Office of Moldova’s Prosecutor General said Wednesday.

“Criminal prosecution of Bagirov’s case was finished today and the defendant and his lawyer were informed about it,” she said. “Now the materials of the case will be submitted to court.”

Bagirov, a writer and active blogger, who is known to readers in Russia for his novel ‘Gastarbeiter’ /’The Guest Worker’/, was detained in Moldova June 16 for a period of 30 days.

At first, the Moldovan authorities did not confirm his detention but they officially notified the Russian embassy on it several days later.

Bagirov is accused of involvement in mass riots that swept the Moldovan capital Chisinau in April 2009.

Certain sections of the electorate felt highly disappointed with the victory of the Communist Party in the parliamentary election at that time. They organized demonstrations of protest, which grow over into rampages in the parliament building and the Office of the President’s compound.

Bagirov would make confessions later about his participation in the events in his publications.

“Bagirov and other active participants in these events are undergoing pressure so that they’d say they had connections with the opposition Communist Party,” Marc Tcaciuc, an advisor to former Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, said in July.

Russian Foreign Ministry spoke out in Bagirov’s Defense. It demanded the writer’s immediate release from detention on written recognizance until completion of all the judiciary procedures.

“This would stand in line with the generally accepted legal and human norms and would not create an unnecessary irritation in bilateral relations,” the ministry said at the end of September in a comment on the situation around the writer’s arrest.