It's hard to believe in court: Hutsul's defense will appeal her arrest to the ECHR

The defense of the Bashkan of Gagauzia, Evgenia Gutsul, will soon file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding her illegal arrest prior to sentencing, her lawyers told Izvestia. In parallel, they will seek the full acquittal of the head of the region, but for now in national courts. Experts believe that after the conviction of Hutsul, Chisinau will increase pressure on Gagauzia. Elections to the National Assembly are due to take place in the autonomy in the coming months, but the Moldovan authorities have eliminated the Comrat Appeals Chamber, which, according to the law, must approve their results. Whether we should expect an international reaction to the Hutsul protection complaints and whether this will affect Chisinau's rhetoric is in the Izvestia article.

Lawyers are preparing complaints about the arrest and sentence of Hutsul

The defense of the Bashkan of Gagauzia, Evgenia Gutsul, is preparing several complaints to the ECHR. One of them concerns the unlawful arrest that preceded the trial in her criminal case. She will be sent to the ECHR in the coming days, the lawyers told Izvestia.

— Yevgenia Hutsul was subjected to preventive arrest, which contradicts article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on this, we appealed it to the Chisinau Court of Appeal. On October 8, she declared the complaint inadmissible. Therefore, we are preparing a corresponding complaint about the illegal arrest to the ECHR. We plan to send her in the coming days," lawyer Natalia Bayram told Izvestia.

Lawyer Sergei Moraru explained that according to the Constitution, an arrest cannot last more than 30 days. Bashkan was held in custody for much longer. She has been in jail since March 25, 2025, and under house arrest since April 9 until sentencing.

On August 5, Hutsul was sentenced to seven years in prison for violations in financing the opposition Shor party. The court also deprived the politician of the right to be a member of political parties for five years and recovered from her $ 2.4 million, which, according to the investigation, went to finance the party.

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The lawyers accused the trial judge of being biased against Gutu. Natalia Bayram drew attention to the fact that during the investigation, the head of Gagauzia was offered to resign from the position of bashkan of the autonomy in exchange for ending criminal prosecution. Hutsul and her defense deny all charges, emphasizing that the ruling Action and Solidarity party, with which Bashkan has a long-term conflict, is behind the trial.

The defense will be able to send the second complaint — regarding violations during the entire trial and the unjustified sentence to Bashkan — to the ECHR only after passing through all judicial instances within Moldova.

"And right now we are only in the second jurisdiction, at the appeal stage," Bayram explained.

The hearing of the lawyers' appeal against the verdict handed down to Evgenia Hutsul and Svetlana Popan, an activist of the Victory bloc, began on October 13. Despite the requests of their lawyers, they were not allowed into the courtroom, so they took part in the meeting via video link. Hutsul stated that all the accusations against her were lies based on falsifications. She stressed that she had never had access to the financial flows of the Shor party and had not made decisions on their distribution. The next meeting will be held on October 16.

Gutsul stated that the Moldovan authorities use imprisonment as a means of pressure to break her. She also stressed that the authorities are well aware that the ECHR considers the conditions of prison No. 13, where Bashkan is located, incompatible with human dignity.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the events around the Hutsuls an example of illegal pressure on political opponents during the election campaign.

At the same time, the Bashkan's defense expects that the Hutsuls will be acquitted and released.

— We insist on an acquittal. There can be no mitigation of the sentence, because there is no corpus delicti in the actions of Evgenia Hutsul," Natalia Bayram said.

Appealing to the ECHR regarding the illegality of Yevgenia Hutsul's arrest seems to be a logical step, Dmitry Sidorov, head of the Department of Foreign Regional Studies at MGLU, told Izvestia.

— For the Moldovan opposition, appealing to international human rights institutions is in many ways a necessary measure, since there is practically no chance of achieving objectivity at the national level. During 2025, the Moldovan authorities took extremely drastic steps against the opposition, which are poorly consistent with the laws of the republic," he noted.

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The probability that the ECHR will rule in favor of the Bashkan of Gagauzia is high, but one should not expect a corresponding reaction from the EU, HSE analyst Nicole Bodisteanu said in an interview with Izvestia.

— The Hutsul verdict provokes an unequivocal negative assessment from observers from Russia, while Brussels simply turns a blind eye to it. If the case is referred to the ECHR, of course, we should not expect any reaction from European officials either," the expert stressed.

Hutsul's relations with the Moldovan authorities began to deteriorate immediately after she came to power in Gagauzia in 2023. The country's president, Maia Sandu, said at the time that the elections in the autonomy had been held with numerous violations. Chisinau obviously does not like the pro-Russian course of politics, which is supported by the majority of the autonomy's population. This is evidenced by the results of the last parliamentary elections: less than 4% of the population voted for Maya Sandu's party in Gagauzia.

Experts believe that the pressure on the autonomy from Chisinau will only increase.

— Gagauzia may lose its autonomy status within a year. After the arrest of Evgenia Gutsul, there are very few independent and independent political actors left there who are ready to fight the politics of Chisinau. And it's unclear who could replace Hutsul as bashkan," political analyst Oleg Bondarenko told Izvestia.

The issue of holding elections to the local parliament is currently being discussed in Gagauzia. In August, the People's Assembly of the Autonomous Republic postponed the date of the next elections due to legal uncertainty. Chairman of the National Assembly Dmitry Konstantinov stressed that according to the law, the results of the elections in Gagauzia are approved by the Comrat Court of Appeal. However, the Moldovan authorities recently eliminated it. The National Assembly asked the Moldovan parliament to restore the judicial authority, but there was no reaction from Chisinau. Yevgenia Gutsul believes that the ruling party is conducting a targeted campaign to prevent the holding of elections to the People's Assembly of Gagauzia.

It is the People's Assembly that elects the Bashkan of the autonomy by a majority vote.