The Revolution case, in Court again
The Revolution case, having Ion Iliescu, Gelu Voican Voiculescu and Iosif Rus as defendants accused of crimes against humanity, on the judges' table again.
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Roxana Vasile, 26.10.2023, 13:50
After being adjourned a couple of times, the Bucharest Court of Appeal rejected all the exceptions and requests raised by the lawyers and decided that the indictment presented by prosecutors, in the Revolution Case, was legal. As a result, the Court ordered the start of the trial on its merits. In this case, 34 years after the anti-communist revolution, former head of state Ion Iliescu, the first president of post-communist Romania, as well as former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu and the former head of the Military Aviation, general Iosif Rus, are accused of committing crimes against humanity, crimes which the statute of limitations does not apply to.
The saga of the Revolution Case began four years ago. In the first phase, it was sent to Court by the Military Prosecutor’s Office in April 2019, but it was returned to the Prosecutor’s Office two years later by the judges with the High Court of Cassation and Justice, on grounds of irregularities in the indictment. After the military prosecutors redid the indictment, the former General Prosecutor of Romania, Gabriela Scutea, announced, in August 2022, that the Revolution Case was being resent to the Supreme Court, only for a preliminary chamber judge to decide, six months later, that the case was not within the Supreme Court’s competence, and to send it to the Bucharest Court of Appeal.
A senior figure of the communist regime, the main defendant, Ion Iliescu, fell out of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescus favor in the 1970s, being consequently marginalized and removed from major political positions. In 1989 he became the central political figure of the anti-communist Revolution, and headed the Romanian state three times: first, between December 22nd, 1989 and 1992, then as elected president in 1992-1996 and again in 2000-2004. According to the indictment, during the Revolution, Ion Iliescu allegedly sought to obtain popular legitimacy intentionally, by directly spreading misinformation through televised appearances and press releases, thus contributing to the the institution of a generalized psychosis. At the same time, between December 22 and 30, he allegedly orchestrated the operation of misleading the public opinion systematically, by using military officials. Their actions and statements intentionally increased the risk of instances of friendly fire, chaotic shooting and contradictory military orders, leading to the death of 857 people, the injuring of 2,382 and the illegal detainment of 585. Ion Iliescu, as well as the other defendants, have always denied any wrongdoing. In time, the events of December 1989 were the subject of investigation in over 4,500 criminal cases. In 112 of them, 275 people were sent to Court. (EE)
