Communist-era prison warden, sentenced

The first Romanian communist prison commander sent to court, Alexandru Visinescu, received a final 20-year sentence.

Mihai Pelin, 11.02.2016, 14:20

More than 25 years after the fall of communism in Romania, the commander of the Ramnicu Sarat prison in 1956-1963, Alexandru Visinescu, now 90, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity. It is the first ruling of this kind passed by Romanian courts with respect to offences committed under the communist regime. Judges also ordered that Alexandru Visinescu be stripped of his military rank and some civil rights for five years. He will also have to pay 300,000 euros in damages to the descendants of some of the prisoners in Ramnicu Sarat.

Prosecutors argued that Alexandru Visinescu, as commander of that prison, subjected the political detainees to brutal treatment, including beatings, starvation, and deprivation of healthcare. Tens of survivors and relatives of political prisoners have testified in court against him. The regime he imposed in Ramnicu Sarat failed to ensure minimum survival conditions in the long term, and many of the prisoners, commonly serving sentences of more than ten years, died slowly as a result of physical and psychological torture. Investigators have identified 138 detainees held in Ramnicu Sarat during Visinescu’s term in office, among whom major political figures like Corneliu Coposu, Ion Diaconescu and Ion Mihalache.

Upon announcing the sentence, judge Valentin Selaru said:

“The Court notes that while a commander of the Ramnicu Sarat Penitentiary, the defendant Alexandru Visinescu subjected the community of prisoners to inhuman treatment, physical and psychological torture and extermination, and did so for political reasons.”

While Valentin Selaru and fellow judge Iulian Dragomir ruled that the communist prison warden may be sentenced, the third member of the panel of judges, Francisca Vasile, had a separate opinion, and admitted the appeal filed by Alexandru Visinescu, who argued the case against him should have been dropped due to the statute of limitations on the crimes.

Judge Francisca Vasile: “There is a 22 years and 6 months statute of limitations on those offences, running from January 1, 1990, which expired in July 2012, more than a year before the Institute for Researching Communist-Era Crimes notified the prosecutors. The authorities are therefore to blame for failing to respond in due time, to the effect that criminal liability in this case has ceased to exist.”

During the trial, Visinescu denied the accusations and said he had simply obeyed orders and the prisoners had died of old age. Alongside Visinescu, historians identified 35 other people responsible for the death of scores of communist political prisoners.

(Translated by Oana Popescu)