Romania's Ex-President Faces Trial Over 1989 Bloodshed

Romania's Attorney General Augustin Lazar on Monday said that he had requested official permission from the president to prosecute former president Ion Iliescu and former Prime Minister Petre Roman for crimes against humanity in the 1989 revolution. Former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu is also set to be prosecuted.

Prosecutors say Iliescu, Roman and Voiculescu were in charge in the Council of the National Salvation Front in December 1989, when anti-regime protests turned violent, leading to over 1,000 deaths and leaving 2,500 people injured.

The 1989 Revolution case is one of the longest and most controversial investigations in Romania's history.

In November 2016, military prosecutors announced that for a fourth time they were reopening the investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed during the 1989 uprising that led to the fall of Communism.

In December 2017, military prosecutor Marian Lazar announced that investigators had uncovered proof that the uprising was orchestrated and that high-ranking military officers tried to assassinate dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena at least three times before they were tried and executed on December 25, 1989.

A series of protests, exchanges of gunfire and demonstrations between December 15 and December 25, 1989 led to the fall of Ceausescu and the end of the Communist regime.

In June 2017, military prosecutors of the Supreme Court indicted former president Iliescu and other former senior officials with crimes against humanity for their role in the violence in 1990 that left at least four dead and over 700 wounded in Bucharest. 

Former prime minister Roman, former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu and the former head of the...