A court in Moldova's breakaway Transdniestria region has sentenced a reporter critical of its government to 15 years jail on charges of treason, the separatist security forces said on Friday, according to Reuters. Ernest Vardanian, a freelance journalist based in the rebel region, was detained on April 7 and has been held in an isolation unit despite appeals for his release from human rights groups, the United States and Russia. Transdniestra's state security ministry has circulated a video recording showing Vardanian apparently confessing to spying for Moldova on the breakaway region, but the journalist has denied the accusations. Vardanian, 30, who holds both Moldovan and Russian citizenship, wrote regularly for the Moldovan daily Puls, based in the capital of Chisinau but lived in Tiraspol, Transdniestra's main city. Until a year ago, Vardanian had worked for a Russian Internet publication. His former colleagues at Puls said he had then began working with them full time but quit unexpectedly after a warning from the Transdniestria security services, though he continued to freelance for the paper. Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking strip of land running down the eastern rim of Moldova, has existed outside the control of Moldova's central government in Chisinau since fighting a brief war after the collapse of Soviet rule in 1992. It has been demanding independence ever since, but has not been internationally recognised. Journalists' rights groups have urged the Transdniestrian authorities to release Vardanian, who is married and has two children. The United States and Russia have also made diplomatic appeals on his behalf.
