CHISINAU, August 12. /TASS/. The head of the Gagauzia autonomy, Evgenia Gutsul, has been transferred to a women's prison with worse conditions of detention, her lawyer, Sergiu Moraru, told TASS.
"The state is obliged to provide conditions that do not degrade human dignity. And the conditions there are very poor. First of all, the tap water is of very poor quality, it is dreadful to look at. It often happens that there is no water at all for two or three days. And this is in such heat. It is impossible to wash properly, to use the toilet, to maintain basic personal hygiene. There are also other peculiarities of this prison," the lawyer said.
The reference is to the only women's prison in Moldova, No. 7, located near the village of Rusca in the Hincesti District. According to the lawyer, the politician is isolated from other inmates and is held in a solitary cell. Chisinau Prison No. 13, where Gutsul spent just over a year, is known in human rights reports for its inhumane conditions. However, the prison near the village of Rusca is even worse, Moraru said.
"There are grounds for Gutsul to remain in Prison No. 13. We filed a corresponding motion so that I could participate in investigative actions in another criminal case. But they did not want to - they somehow specially arranged for Gutsul to be sent to the prison in the village of Rusca. Probably knowing that the conditions there are even worse than in Prison No. 13," the lawyer said.
Last August, a Moldovan court sentenced Gutsul to seven years in prison on charges related to irregularities in funding her political party. Gutsul has denied the charges, and her legal team has filed an appeal, which remains pending. Relations between Gutsul and Moldova’s leadership soured further in 2023 after her electoral victory in Gagauzia and her public statements advocating for stronger ties with Russia, as well as her criticism of Chisinau’s confrontational policies toward Moscow.