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"Revolution" File: Ion Iliescu officially accepted measures of a military nature - some diversionary
Ex-President Ion Iliescu accepted, including at an official level, such measures of a military nature, including some that had an "obvious diversionary nature," showed a Tuesday press release of the General Prosecutor's Office, which specifies that the judges ruled to extend the criminal proceedings for crimes against humanity against the former President of the National Salvation Front Council (CFSN), for facts he allegedly committed over December 27-31 1989, in the case of which there is no need of previous authorization.
Ex-President Ion Iliescu on Tuesday left the Attorney General's Office after about an hour and 30 minutes without making statements to the press. He had been summoned to be informed that he is a subject in criminal investigation of the December 1989 Revolution, standing accused of crimes against humanity.
On April 13, President Klaus Iohannis favourably approved a prosecutors' request for the criminal prosecution of Iliescu, Petre Roman and Gelu Voican Voiculescu.
On December 18, 2017, the Military Prosecutor's Office announced that following the filing of evidence in the Revolution case, the investigators' conclusion was that in December 1989 there was no power vacuum. Military prosecutor Marian Lazar then declared that there was a military diversion that started on the evening of December 22, 1989, which he said was the main cause of numerous deaths, bodily injuries and destruction.
Additionally, the prosecutors identified, including by testimony, the source of the panic sound (released on December 21, 1989, during late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's last public speech), which contributed, among other things, to the dispersal of the public rally before the Royal Palace and the triggering of street protests in Bucharest.
At the same time, the prosecutors argued that diversion tactics were used against commanders of military unit UM 01417 Targoviste, where the Ceausescus had been secretly driven, and orders had been given from the top of the military command for the physical elimination of the presidential couple.
"It is clear that the diversion existed; it manifested in a complex manner on several planes, being the main cause of numerous deaths, bodily injuries and destructions. The evidence filed highlighted the mechanisms of constant misinformation, with particularly serious consequences, launched through the public television and radio broadcasters as well as military means of communication, thus instilling the well-known terrorist psychosis nationwide. At the same time the way in which a series of diversionary military orders were transmitted, with particularly serious consequences, was schemed up. Regarding the same diversion, data were obtained proving that in 1987 the armed forces of Romania imported two types of machinegun sound generators, as well as generators or infantry weaponry sounds and live fire, and generators of fake sounds imitating the descending of parachutists. At the same time, the filed evidence has led to a better understanding of the radio and electronic diversions back then. Similarly, the succession of the events at UM 01417 Targoviste, the location where the Ceausescus had been kept since December 22, 1989, was clarified. The evidence revealed a constant diversion to which the commanders of this unit were subjected as well as the existence of orders from the top of the military command for the physical elimination of the Ceausescus," prosecutor Marian Lazar said back then.
In addition, until the Ceausescus' execution on December 25, 1989, three attempts had been made to physically liquidate them.
The investigators stated that the circumstances surrounding the preparation of the emergency trial of the former president and his wife, the actual trial, the real motivations behind this action and the execution of the Ceausescus were clarified.
In 2015, the European Court of Human Right ruled against Romania and asked the state to pay compensation to eight people - 2,400 euro each - over the length of the criminal proceedings in a case related to their ill-treatment in December 1989. In November 2016, military prosecutors restarted the investigation into alleged crimes against humanity.
This is the second time Iliescu has faced charges of crimes against humanity. In June 2017, military prosecutors of the Supreme Court indicted Iliescu and other former senior officials for crimes against humanity for their role in a violent crackdown on opposition protesters in Bucharest’s University Square on June 13-15, 1990. The violence left at least four dead and over 700 wounded in Bucharest. The trial is ongoing.
Iliescu announced in February 2010 that he was retiring from politics.
He was president of Romania between 1989 and 1996, and from 2000 until 2004.