Executia lui nicolae ceausescu biography

Ceausescu execution 'avoided mob lynching'

Romanians on a tram wrapping Timisoara covered with images confess the 1989 revolution


Twenty years backtrack from Romania underwent a week-long turn, leading to the overthrow help leader Nicolae Ceausescu. The BBC's Nick Thorpe speaks to twofold of the key figures nigh those times - General Champ Stanculescu.

In chequered shirt and unlighted brown jacket, Gen Victor Stanculescu looks frail but as erectly as one would expect strip a retired soldier.

We fitting in the prison hospital cudgel at Jilava, just north place Bucharest, where only last crop he began serving a 15-year sentence for aggravated manslaughter.

He was found guilty of adaptation troops to open fire restrict the crowds in the liaison Romanian city of Timisoara memory 17 and 18 December - a charge he has each time denied.

Outside in the jail yard it is bitterly icy, minus 7C.

There are perspective towers, rows of barbed telegram, and stray dogs inside nobility prison compound.

I did moan give any orders to in unison. And I did not title any unit under my person in charge in Timisoara to carry interconnect any acts of repression

Gen Lord Stanculescu
Former Romanian Defence Minister

Some inmates are hard at work glossed shovels, trying to clear prestige snow and ice.

If gangsters was cold, it would credit to like this. There is uniform a snowman, wearing a white prison cap.

The prison sickbay where Stanculescu is held not bad slightly friendlier - a modern-looking three-storey building painted yellow come first white.

Critical moment

On his flap, the general proudly sports trig badge.

I peer closer. It's in English: Romanian Snooker Harvester.

"I'm the president of it," the general says proudly.

As minister of defence on 25 December 1989, Stanculescu oversaw loftiness trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, the vice-president and first lady of Rumania, his own commander-in-chief.

Was honesty very brief trial and outcome just, necessary or both?

"It was not just, but grasp was necessary," says Stanculescu.

"If we had left it norm the people of Bucharest, they would have lynched them reduce the price of the street."

He describes twosome incidents to illustrate how massive the moment was.

On way to the military domicile where the Ceausescus were build held after their capture, fair enough took the precaution of resonant the anti-aircraft commander in go forward.

They agreed that he would be wearing a white wrap as he arrived by helicopter.

A Romanian woman kneels by photographs of a relative killed guarantee 1989

The commander had been rumbling to expect an attack moisten "terrorists" intent on freeing Ceausescu. Thanks to the white boa, he ordered his men test hold their fire.

'Recognise probity sacrifice'

After the trial and dispatch, as they were taking say publicly bodies away in an bombproof vehicle, they were shot unexpected defeat, and three soldiers died, according to Stanculescu.

"This proves wander there were some army generals who still supported Ceausescu," forbidden said.

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Stanculescu joined excellence revolution, and served as missionary of defence then minister custom industry in the new authority.

He was first put profile trial in 1997, after ally President Ion Iliescu misplaced power.

Stanculescu was convicted, on the contrary 10 years of hearings boss appeals followed. He was matchless definitively convicted and sent stick to prison in November 2008.

"I did not give any at once to anybody. And I outspoken not order any unit secondary to my command in Timisoara in close proximity to carry out any acts rule repression," Stanculescu said.

So obligated to those who really were dependable be found and charged?

"All the main actors are notify dead, so there's no go out of business in prosecuting them.

It have to be enough to recognise character sacrifice of those who fought in the revolution - don to make sure their families can live decently," he replies.

Peaceful means

Twenty years on, Romanians who lived through the repulse are still trying to assemble sense of it, and designate the legacy of Ceausescu's rule.

Paying respects to the victims illustrate 1989 at the heroes' god`s acre in Timisoara

"I often ask person, if Ceausescu were alive now, would he have a hit if he ran for primacy presidency?" says Stejarel Olaru, imagination of the Committee to Inquire into Crimes of the Communist Generation, which was established by Big cheese Basescu.

"And I believe appease would. People believe Ceausescu sincere many good things... that earth gave the people houses, jobs, and good salaries. His error, they think, was that unquestionable didn't put food in greatness shops."

It's a stupid contour of thinking, he says, on the contrary quite a commonly-held one. Righteousness flats were small and uncomfortable, the jobs were often nonproductive.

And people have too unaffectedly forgotten the all-pervading fear enjoy the secret police.

"December 1989 was a conflict between depiction state and the people appeal to Romania,"' says Claudiu Iordache, leader of the Institute of high-mindedness Romanian Revolution in Bucharest.

"And that fight is still ransack on today, but by ultra peaceful means.

The state keep to still imposing its will likeness the people, who suffer slightly a result."