Precedent-setting Moldovan Whistleblower still Seeking Justice

"He is the first, because the notion of whistleblower did not exist in the Strasbourg Court's vocabulary until then," Vitalie Zama, one of the lawyers in Guja's case, told BIRN.

"And the first question that was asked was whether or not to protect the whistleblowers; whether freedom of expression exists for them or not."

'I suffered the consequences'

Guja's story began in 2003, when he was the 33-year-old head of the press department at Moldova's General Prosecutors' Office.

A hand operates above a laptop's keyboard. Photo: EPA/Andy Rain

Guja, a former journalist and veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the 1992 Transnistria conflict in Moldova, sent to the country's top-selling newspaper, Jurnal de Chisinau, two letters received by the prosecutors' office.

One was signed by the then deputy speaker of the Moldovan parliament, Vadim Misin, in which he asked the General Prosecutor to halt the prosecution of four police officers accused of abuse of power and blackmail.

The second was sent by the then deputy minister of internal affairs, Alexandru Ursachi, and also asked for the case to be dropped.

Within a few months, the case had indeed been closed.

Outraged by the leak, the prosecutors' office ordered an internal inquiry, during which Guja owned up. The letters, Zama argued, were not confidential, but Guja was dismissed anyway.

"I cannot say it was a heroic act," Guja told BIRN in a telephone interview. "I reacted in good faith but I suffered the consequences."

Guja, in his deposition, said: "My intention was not to harm the Prosecutor's Office, but on the contrary to create a positive image for it," he said.

Reinstated and dismissed 11 days later<...