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Ion Iliescu, officially indicted in the Mineriad* case
The Prosecutor General's Office officially announced on Friday the indictment of former Romania’s President Ion Iliescu (1992-1996 and 2000-2004) for crimes against humanity in the Mineriad case of June 1990.
"In the case known generically as the 'Mineriad of 13-15 June 1990', the military prosecutors of the Military Prosecution Section ordered, on 19.04.2024, the continuation of the criminal proceedings against Ion Iliescu, at the time of the facts President of the Provisional Council of National Union and elected President of Romania, on the charge of committing crimes against humanity, in the normative variants provided for by Art. 439 para. 1 lit. a) (4 secondary passive subjects), lit. f) (at least 2 secondary passive subjects), lit. g) (at least 1315 secondary passive subjects), lit. j) (at least 1214 secondary passive subjects) of the Criminal Code, with application of Art. 5 of the Criminal Code", reads a press release issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office.
A team of investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office went, on Friday morning, to Ion Iliescu’s residence to announce the former president that he was indicted again in the case known as Mineriada of June 1990.
The prosecutors spent only ten minutes in the villa where Iliescu lives, using a back door in order to avoid the journalists present on the spot.
On Thursday, the former premier Petre Roman, fomer vice-premier Gelu-Voican Voiculescu, former manager of SRI Virgil Magureanu, Adrian Sarbu, Miron Cozma, the former generals Vasile Dobrinoiu and Peter Petre were one by one called at the headquarters of the Prosecutor General’s Office to be announced about the indictments.
In the case of Ion Iliescu there was applied a special procedure for indictment as he could not go to the Prosecutor’s Office being aged 94.
Prosecutors must reopen the investigation into the case after evidence gathered by investigators was quashed in court.
Initially, in June 2017, the former president Ion Iliescu was sent to trial for crimes against humanity together with former premier Petre Roman and former manager of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), Virgil Magureanu, but in December 2020, the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided to return the case to the Military Prosecutor’s Office for a fresh start of the investigation.
The judges decided the cancellation of all evidence gathered by the prosecutors, as they found that the indictment in which Ion Iliescu was indicted together with Petre Roman Gelu Voican Voiculescu, Virgil Magureanu, General (res.) Mugurel Cristian Florescu, Admiral (res.) Emil ‘ Cico’ Dumitrescu (deceased in the meantime), Cazimir Ionescu, Adrian Sarbu and Miron Cozma, was unlawful.
The military prosecutors alleged that, on 11 and 12 June 1990, the state authorities decided to launch a violent attack against demonstrators in Bucharest's University Square, who were mainly campaigning for the adoption of point 8 of the Timisoara Proclamation and were peacefully expressing their political views, in contradiction with those of the majority in political power at the time.
In this attack there were involved, unlawfully, forces of the ministry of domestic affairs, the ministry of national defence, SRI, as well as over 10,000 miners and other workers from different areas of the country.
According to the Military Prosecutor Office, the attack was put in action on the morning of 13th June 1990, with the following consequences: four people shot dead, two people raped, 1,388 people physically or mentally injured, 1,250 people deprived of their fundamental right to liberty for political reasons.
Ion Iliescu was accused by military prosecutors of giving the order for the forceful evacuation of the demonstrators from University Square, including the use of workers from large enterprises in Bucharest.
*The mineriads (Romanian: mineriade) were a series of protests and often violent altercations by Jiu Valley miners in Bucharest during the 1990s, particularly 1990–91. The term "mineriad" is also used to refer to the most significant and violent of these encounters, which occurred June 13-15 , 1990