Moldova's Voronin took hens, cow, horse, says leader

CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova is in a flap over accusations by its new pro-West leaders that communist ex-President Vladimir Voronin took hens, turkeys and even a cow with its calf from an official residence when he stepped down.

The veteran leader, eight years in power, also took a horse, a wine collection, and furniture, according to journalists who accompanied Acting President Mihai Ghimpu on a trip to the residence at Condrita earlier this month.

Voronin on Thursday hit back at Ghimpu who has called for an inventory to be drawn up of missing items.

"Ghimpu ought to look better at the stock list and then he wouldn't ask stupid questions," Voronin told a news conference.

Maybe Ghimpu should "count all the fish in the lake of the residence as well," he added.

But he declined to say what had happened to the livestock from the Condrita estate which the estate's deputy director, quoted by journalists, said had included about 20 hens.

The two-storey Condrita villa is set in a wooded estate 30 km (17 miles) from the capital Chisinau and was one of the residences of the communist party chief in Soviet times.

"An inventory will show what there was, what has been taken and who will answer for this," Ghimpu told journalists.

The squabble reflects a bitter struggle for power between leaders of the Alliance for European Integration, who won an election in July, and Voronin's communists now in opposition.