Irina Lozovan
Irina Lozovan | |
|---|---|
Lozovan in 2024 | |
| Member of the Moldovan Parliament | |
| Assumed office 9 March 2019 | |
| Parliamentary group | Party of Socialists Bloc of Communists and Socialists Revival Party |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Irina Mihail Lozovan 27 December 1983 Lipcani, Moldavian SSR, Soviet Union (now Moldova) |
| Political party | Revival Party |
| Other political affiliations | Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova |
| Alma mater | Alecu Russo State University of Bălți |
| Occupation | Politician |
Irina Lozovan (born 27 December 1983) is a Moldovan politician. She has been a member of the Parliament of Moldova since 2019. Originally a member of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), she joined the Revival Party, affiliated to Moldovan fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, in 2023.
On 31 March 2025, Lozovan was sentenced to six years in prison for knowingly accepting funding for a political party from Shor's criminal group. She and her husband, sentenced at the same time as her to five years for complicity, escaped to Moldova's Russian-backed unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria to avoid justice.
Biography
Early life and education
Irina Mihail Lozovan was born on 27 December 1983 in the town of Lipcani, in the Moldavian SSR of the Soviet Union (now Moldova). She studied at the Gheorghe Asachi Pedagogical College (now the Gheorghe Asachi College) of Lipcani from 1999 to 2001 and at the Alecu Russo State University of Bălți from 2001 to 2007.[1]
Political career
Lozovan joined the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) in 2014.[1] She was councillor of Ocnița District and of the town of Otaci,[2] and became a member of the Parliament of Moldova for the PSRM in 2019.[3] She had run for the Ocnița constituency in the 2019 Moldovan parliamentary election and won, beating the five other candidates. Lozovan became member of the parliament for the Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BECS) in 2021. According to a June 2021 investigation by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Moldova (CIJM), Lozovan was involved in a corruption case involving the state-owned company Edineț Forestry Enterprise.[2]
On 25 March 2023, Lozovan announced that she would leave the BECS and join the Movement for the People. On 16 May, parliament member Alexandr Nesterovschi announced that he and Lozovan would join the Revival Party, led by Serghei Mișin. On 22 May, Lozovan, Nesterovschi, Vasile Bolea and Alexandr Suhodolski, all former BECS parliament members, joined the Revival Party.[4]
On 4 August of that year, the National Anticorruption Center (CNA) announced that Lozovan's husband, Ocnița District councillor Pavel Gîrleanu, had been put under preventive arrest for 30 days, as he would have attempted to bribe Ocnița mayor Victor Artamanciuc with 30,000 dollars to leave the PSRM and join the Revival Party.[5] On 21 September, Lozovan and Nesterovschi were stripped of their parliamentary immunity and arrested for 72 hours. Both were accused of accepting illegal financing from the criminal group of Moldovan fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, to whom the Revival Party was affiliated, as well as of money laundering and passive corruption.[6]
Conviction and escape to Transnistria
On 31 March 2025, Lozovan and Gîrleanu were sentenced in absentia to six and five years in prison respectively and banned from holding public office for five years. Lozoveanu was sentenced for knowingly accepting funding for a political party from Shor's organized criminal group, while Gîrleanu was recognized as accomplice. The court ruled that 30,000 dollars, recognized as corpus delicti, with which both tried to bribe Ocnița's mayor, would be confiscated and transferred to the state.[7]
On 3 April, the head of the Moldovan Police, Viorel Cernăuțeanu, declared that Lozovan and Gîrleanu had escaped to Moldova's Russian-backed unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria to avoid justice. Nesterovschi had also been sentenced on 19 March, to 12 years in prison, and likewise escaped to Transnistria the day before. However, unlike Nesterovschi, who escaped with the help of the Russian embassy in Chișinău, Lozovan and Gîrleanu escaped through other means, and also before him, according to Cernăuțeanu.[8]
References
- ^ a b "Irina Lozovan". alegeri.md (in Romanian). Association for Participatory Democracy. Retrieved 6 April 2025.
- ^ a b Cozonac, Cornelia (25 March 2023). "Se răresc rândurile PSRM // Cine este deputata Irina Lozovan care a părăsit formațiunea". Anticoruptie.md (in Romanian). Center for Investigative Journalism of Moldova.
- ^ Coptu, Nadejda (20 January 2025). ""Așa este în politică". Deputata Lozovan a depus mărturie în procesul său de corupție politică" (in Romanian). Radio Europa Liberă Moldova.
- ^ "Patru foști deputați socialiști au aderat la Partidul Renaștere". Știri.md (in Romanian). 22 May 2023.
- ^ Cojocari, Malvina (4 August 2023). "Soțul deputatei Irina Lozovan, plasat în arest pentru 30 de zile după ce a încercat să-l mituiască cu $30 000 pe primarul de Ocnița". NewsMaker (in Romanian).
- ^ Arvintii, Ecaterina (21 September 2023). "Deputații Irina Lozovan și Alexandr Nesterovschi au fost reținuți, după ce au fost lipsiți de imunitate parlamentară". NewsMaker (in Romanian).
- ^ "VERDICT // Deputata Irina Lozovan și soțul ei, Pavel Gârleanu, condamnați la ani grei de pușcărie pentru corupție politică, la comanda lui Șor: Aceștia sunt de negăsit și au fost anunțați în căutare". Ziarul Național (in Romanian). 31 March 2025.
- ^ Dolghii, Ana Maria (4 April 2025). "Șeful IGP confirmă că deputata Irina Lozovan se ascunde în Transnistria: "A plecat chiar până la Nesterovschi"". NewsMaker (in Romanian).