On April 24, 2015 the OSCE office in Bendery hosted a working meeting of experts of Pridnestrovie and Moldova on resolving problems related to criminal prosecution of the officials of the parties initiated in the Republic of Moldova and Pridnestrovie. The meeting was held in accordance with the agreements reached at the meeting of the political representatives of Moldova and Pridnestrovie with the heads of expert (working) groups on 20 March 2015, and also in accordance with the instructions of the President of Pridnestrovie and the Prime Minister of Moldova made at the meeting on April 10, 2015 in Tiraspol.
During the discussion, experts of the parties analyzed the current problem situation regarding the opening in the Republic of Moldova of a number of criminal cases against officials of Pridnestrovie, including representatives of the republic's leadership, as well as the criminal cases launched in Pridnestrovie against certain officials of the Republic of Moldova.
The sides confirmed the need to find a solution to the problem based on the current provisions of the legislation of Pridnestrovie and Moldova, which, in particular, will allow to return to a functional bilateral cooperation between law enforcement authorities of Pridnestrovie and Moldova in order to effectively counter crime and maintain law and order in the territory under their jurisdiction. The Pridnestrovian side handed the Moldovan experts current list of officials of Pridnestrovie, against which, according to available information, criminal proceedings were initiated in Moldova. The updated list includes more than one hundred officials of Pridnestrovie, about half of which received summons from the Moldovan law enforcement agencies in the past two years.
The experts agreed to hold a meeting in the near future at which the participation of representatives of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Moldova is expected, this will allow to start a substantive consideration of the closing of politically motivated criminal cases against officials of the parties.
