Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu was officially charged with crimes against humanity by the country’s top prosecutor on Monday as it finalised an inquiry into the chaotic and bloody anti-Communist revolution of 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iliescu, 89, has repeatedly said he was \ninnocent. He enjoyed widespread popularity after the revolt against \nDictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was deposed and executed in December \n1989.But hundreds of people died in the ouster and Iliescu’s opponents \naccused him of stealing the revolution from the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The \ncompletion of this case by our military prosecutors, is one of the most \nimportant goals in the management project I assumed publicly three years\n ago: to solve Romania’s historical files,” General Prosecutor Augustin \nLazar told reporters. No date was set for trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tuesday’s \nofficial indictment came after prosecutors accused Iliescu last December\n of masterminding the formation of a group in December 1989, with the \naim of gaining power and political legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the scheme, a\n general “terrorism psychosis” was fuelled, triggering “fratricidal \nfire, chaotic shootings and contradictory military orders”, that led to \nthe death of 862 people and the wounding of another 2,150 after \nCeausescu left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 13 million bullets were used by troops. The\n conviction and hastily assembled execution of Ceausescu and his wife \nElena was also part of the scheme pursued “in a simulated criminal \ntrial”, on December 25, 1989, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecutors said \nthat using statements and television the group engaged in “broad and \ncomplex misleading activities of diversion and misinformation” after \nCeausescu fled the capital on December 22, 1989 Iliescu was confirmed as\n interim president by a temporary parliament in February 1990. As \ncandidate of the National Salvation Front, he won 85 per cent of a \nballot in May 1990, an overwhelming vote of confidence in a man who had \nstepped into the spotlight only five months earlier in the confusion of \nrevolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His critics at home and abroad accuse Iliescu, who \nstepped down in 2004, and other leading politicians of trying to block \nreform and protect the political heritage and ruling elite of the \nCommunist system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iliescu, the Moscow-educated son of a \nrailwayman, is also on trial together with former Prime Minister Petre \nRoman on charges of crimes against humanity over the crushing of \npeaceful anti-government protests in Bucharest in June 1990 in which \nfour people were killed.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu was officially charged with crimes against humanity by the country’s top prosecutor on Monday as it finalised an inquiry into the chaotic and bloody anti-Communist revolution of 1989. Iliescu, 89, has repeatedly said he was innocent. He enjoyed widespread popularity after the revolt against Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was deposed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58741,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58739\/revisions\/58741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}