The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgement on the legal case of the young man killed in an illegal paramilitary unit in Transnistria came into force and the Russian Federation is obliged to execute it, as the Promo-LEX Association announced.

Previously, the Government of the Russian Federation has called for a re-examination of the decision by which the ECtHR found that Russia had violated the right to life in the Transnistrian region and compelled the Russian Government to pay 53,000 euros as a compensation to Alexandru Stomatii’s mother. Stomatii was a young man who was forcibly incorporated in an illegal paramilitary unit from the Transnistrian region in 2009 and was murdered one year later. The ECtHR rejected the Russian Government’s request, the Russian Federation being bounded to unconditionally execute the previous judgment of the ECtHR issued on September 18th, 2018.

The Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova alleges the organization or participation in an illegal paramilitary formation. Over the past 10 years, Promo-LEX has identified several deaths in the so-called ‘Transnistrian army’. According to an association’s report, young people who avoid enrolling in the ‘Transnistrian army’ are fined up to 1,700 euros or receive a sentence of up to two years in prison.

“The ECtHR judgment is one more confirmation of the tough realities faced by the young people enrolled in the so-called ‘Transnistrian army’. Young people who refuse to serve an illegal regime are hunted and persecuted by the administration of the region, and the Moldovan authorities have been unresponsive to this problem that has lasted for more than 25 years,” according to a Promo-LEX press release from 2018.

In 2010, the Stomatii’s relatives filed a complaint with the Moldovan and Russian authorities, as they raised doubts regarding the way the criminal case was examined. The Russian authorities did not respond to Stomatii’s mother requests, and the Moldovan authorities suspended the proceedings motivating that no accuser could be identified.

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