5.  The applicants, Mr Ernest Vardanean and Ms Irina Vardanean, are Moldovan nationals who were born in 1980 and live in Chisinau.
6.  The background to the case, including the Transdniestrian armed conflict of 1991-1992 and the subsequent events, is set out in Ilaşcu and Others v. Moldova and Russia ([GC], no. 48787/99, §§ 28-185, ECHR 2004‑VII) and Catan and Others v. the Republic of Moldova and Russia ([GC], nos. 43370/04, 8252/05 and 18454/06, §§ 8-42, ECHR 2012).
7.  The applicants are husband and wife and are journalists. At the time of the events they were living in the self-proclaimed “Moldovan Republic of Transdniestria” (the “MRT”). The first applicant was employed by a Russian news agency and by a Moldovan newspaper.
8.  On 7 April 2010 the first applicant was arrested by agents of the secret service of the “MRT” on charges of treason and/or espionage undertaken for the Republic of Moldova. A search was carried out in the applicants’ apartment and many of their belongings – such as pictures, computers and a bank card – were seized.
9.  On 16 December 2010, a tribunal from the “MRT” convicted the first applicant and sentenced him to fifteen years’ imprisonment. Following international pressure, on 5 May 2011 the president of the “MRT” pardoned him. After that date, the applicant and his family moved to Chisinau.
10.  During his detention the first applicant met on several occasions with representatives of the “MRT” secret services, including the chief of the secret services, and was led to believe that his family might suffer if he refused to cooperate with them. He was asked to record a video of himself admitting having worked for the Moldovan secret services. That video was aired on Transdniestrian television. On another occasion he was asked to write a letter to the foreign ambassadors to Moldova “disclosing” the fact that the Moldovan secret services were spying on the foreign embassies based in Chisinau. He subsequently was given to understand by representatives of the “MRT” secret services that the letter had served the purpose of creating tensions between Chisinau and western countries and that the whole matter, including his arrest, was being coordinated from Moscow.
11.  The second applicant could only visit the first applicant on a limited number of occasions during his detention and lawyers representing the first applicant in the proceedings before the Court were denied access to him on the grounds that they were not members of the “Transdniestrian Bar Association”.
12.  In the meantime, the Moldovan authorities made numerous attempts to secure the first applicant’s release. In particular, the problem of his detention in the “MRT” was raised by the Moldovan authorities with the European Union and the United States authorities in April 2010 in Brussels. The Moldovan delegation distributed a circular letter during the April 2010 session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and raised the first applicant’s situation during meetings of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in January and February 2011. The first applicant’s situation was also raised by the Moldovan authorities in their discussions with the OSCE representatives in Chisinau, and a criminal investigation was initiated by the Moldovan Prosecutor’s Office in respect of the applicant’s detention in the “MRT”. However, the criminal investigation was later discontinued.
13.  The Moldovan Government also awarded financial assistance to the first applicant’s family during the period of the first applicant’s detention in the “MRT” and transferred to them ownership of a flat in Chisinau worth 53,000 euros (EUR) after the first applicant’s release from detention.