Exactly one year ago, a court in Chișinău sentenced the Governor of Gagauzia, Evghenia Guțul, to seven years in prison for illegal political party financing. President Maia Sandu has found a rather original way to mark the occasion.
On August 5, 2025, the incumbent head of the Gagauz autonomy was handed a 7-year prison term for funding the banned Șor Party and for “knowingly receiving funds from an organized criminal group” to the tune of over 42.5 million lei. Guțul was taken into custody right in the courtroom and sent to the notorious Penitentiary No. 13, from which she has never walked free.
Opposition figures and Guțul’s defense team maintain that the verdict is a political witch-hunt that has nothing to do with justice. Her guilt, they argue, was never convincingly proven; witnesses one after another testified in court that they did not even know the defendant. Yet this did not sway the judges’ ruling.
Yesterday, a year after the draconian sentence, President Sandu called for mercy and forgiveness. But not for the mother of two who was locked up for seven years on trumped-up charges. Instead, she appealed for compassion toward her own cousin, Anastasia Taburceanu, who landed a no-show job at a state-owned company through a corrupt scheme — she never once turned up for work, yet regularly pocketed a six-figure salary.
She is the one who “made a mistake” and to whom we are supposed to show leniency, understanding, and pardon. We — those demanding that her thieving relative be brought to justice — are the ones she shames for lacking mercy. As for her own utter lack of compassion toward a political rival jailed in what looks like a politically motivated case — that, she conveniently forgot to mention yesterday. The cynicism, especially on such a symbolic date, is simply off the charts.
