The Prosecutor General’s Office returns the Revolutuion case back to court; 33 years have passed since the Romanian Revolution of 1989/ Prosecutors claim to have resolved the irregularities pointed by the judges

Prosecutors at the General Prosecutor’s Office are sending the 1989 Romanian Revolution case back to court after Gabriela Scutea said they had resolved the problems raised by the judges.

Gabriela Scutea told a press conference on Wednesday that „the resumption of the prosecution was ordered after the file was physically returned by the High Court of Justice, and the prosecution acts and the drafting of the indictment were done in 5 months and 15 days”.

Scutea added that the resumption of the case by another prosecutor would have meant a very long period of time just to read the volumes of the Revolution file.

„A clarification is needed regarding the events of 1989 (…) Many of the files are gathered in the file we are submitting to the Court of Cassation and Justice today (…)”, said Gabriela Scutea, head of the General Prosecutor’s Office.
The Revolution case also involves former Romanian President Ion Iliescu, former Deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu and former Air Force chief Iosif Rus.

Background

On 8 April 2019, the prosecutors of the Military Section of the Prosecutor General’s Office sent to trial the case of the Revolution of December 1989, in which Ion Iliescu, Gelu Voican Voiculescu, Iosif Rus and Emil Dumitrescu were indicted for crimes against humanity. The case file comprises 3,330 volumes, of which 2,030 were processed after 13 June 2016.

The judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided in 2021 that the Revolution file should return to the Military Prosecutor’s Office, after the Supreme Court in October 2020 excluded several pieces of evidence submitted by the Military Prosecutor’s Office in the case, including reports drawn up by the National Intelligence Service (SRI) and the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Revolution that operated in the 1990s. The supreme court identified several legal problems in the military prosecutors’ investigation, and magistrates are having to reopen the inquiry 32 years after the events of 1989.

Ion Iliescu, member and president of the National Salvation Front Council C.F.S.N., Gelu Voican Voiculescu, C.F.S.N. member and former deputy prime minister of the Romanian government, Iosif Rus, former commander of the Air Force, and Emil (Cico) Dumitrescu, a former member of the CFSN, are accused in the December 1989 Revolution case of crimes against humanity.

The evidence, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, revealed that the entire Romanian military force, the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of the Interior – Department of State Security, as well as the Patriotic Guards, from 22.12.1989, 16:00, placed themselves at the disposal of the National Salvation Front Council and its leadership. From the same moment, the political-military decision-making group of the C.F.S.N. took important decisions of a political and military nature, aiming at the accession to the political power of a pre-constituted group and political legitimacy before the Romanian people. Research suggests that the establishment of a generalized psychosis of terrorism created numerous situations of fratricidal fire, chaotic firing, contradictory military orders, etc.

In this context, approximately 12,600,000 cartridges were fired between 22 and 30 December 1989. The terrorist psychosis is said to have been deliberately induced by diversions and disinformation and, after 22.12.1989, caused 862 deaths, 2,150 injuries, the serious deprivation of liberty of hundreds of people and mental injuries. These tragic consequences were far more serious than those of the repression that took place between 17 and 22 December 1989 (12 noon), prosecutors say.

Traducere: Ovidiu Harfas