President Maia Sandu has filed a lawsuit against journalist Gheorghe Gonta. Gonta first announced the legal action himself, and the Presidential Press Service later confirmed it.
Gonta said that the president sent him a pre-trial notice after he published a video editorial alleging supposed ties between Sandu and the Transnistrian regime and suggesting that she may have benefited from these connections.
“Maia Sandu is demanding 100,000 lei from me. Through her lawyer, she sent a pre-trial notice asking me to retract the statements I made about her in my video editorial, publicly apologize, delete the footage from all platforms, and pay 100,000 lei in compensation for the moral damage I allegedly caused. Otherwise, the notice says, she will take me to court. See you at the trial,” Gonta wrote on social media.
Presidential spokesperson Igor Zaharov confirmed the pre-trial notice to Realitatea, saying: “We have filed a pre-trial notice against this individual for spreading lies and insinuations that have no connection whatsoever to reality.”