Fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor sentenced to 15 years in prison - final verdict

CHISINAU. April 13 (Interfax) - The Chisinau Appeals Chamber has ruled that Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan oligarch and Shor Party chairman, must serve a 15-year prison sentence.

"The judgment is final and is not subject to appeal," Olesea Stamate, the head of the parliamentary Commission for Legal Affairs, Appointments and Immunity, said on social media.

The chamber also placed a sequestration (ban on use) on all of the businessman's assets.

"Wherever he serves his sentence, in Israel or in Moldova, the assets seized - 5 billion leus (around $280 mln) - will now be confiscated by the state! And that's just one case, and there will be more decisions ahead," the lawyer said.

Shor was arrested in May 2015, and was sentenced to seven and a half years' imprisonment for fraud and money laundering in 2017. The ruling was appealed with the Appeals Chamber and has not yet come into force.

Prosecutors said Shor, along with another fugitive oligarch, Vlad Plahotniuc, was among the biggest participants and beneficiaries in the 2014 theft of $1 billion from Moldova's banking system. Shor held shares in two Moldovan banks, which subsequently had to be shut down. He is married to Russian pop singer Jasmin.

Shor fled Moldova in June 2019 and is in hiding in Israel. While in exile, he was elected twice to the Moldovan parliament, in 2019 and 2021, on his Shor Party ticket.

Next month, the Constitutional Court of Moldova will consider a government request to ban the party on account of non-transparent funding.