The General Prosecutor’s Office officially announced on Thursday the indictment of former prime minister Petre Roman and former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican-Voiculescu for crimes against humanity in the June 1990 Miners’ Rampage case (Mineriada).
Also, former Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) director Virgil Magureanu, PM’s adviser Adrian Sarbu, miners’ leader Miron Cozma, general (in reserve) Vasile Dobrinoiu (former commander of the Superior Military School of Officers of the Ministry of Interior) and general (in reserve) Peter Petre (former commander of Military Unit 0575 Magurele) were indicted.
They were summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday to be informed of the charges.
Former president Ion Iliescu will be questioned by prosecutors on Friday at home, because he cannot go to the headquarters of the Prosecutor’s Office, as he is 94 years old.
Military prosecutors claim that, in June 1990, decision-makers in the Romanian state at that time, including Petre Roman, Gelu Voican-Voiculescu, helped by other people close to power or who supported it – including Virgil Magureanu, Adrian Sarbu, launched a policy of repression against the civilian population of the capital. As a result of which four people were killed, two people were raped, the physical and/or mental integrity of over 1,300 people was damaged and over 1,200 people were persecuted by illegal deprivation of liberty.
Starting with April 22, 1990, in the University Square in Bucharest took place a manifestation that lasted for several weeks, until June 13, 1990. The demonstration had the character of an opposition to the newly installed power in Romania after the 1989 Revolution, the demonstrators verbally demanding, through communiqués and other forms of protest, the break with the communist regime just replaced in December 1989, the promotion of people who did not have a past as party activists, the establishment of a free television and other such demands of democratic origin.
In this context, Petre Roman, Gelu Voican-Voiculescu, Virgil Magureanu and other persons from the leadership of the state or of the National Salvation Front (FSN) launched an attack against the demonstrators physically being in the University Square, which was in fact a pretext meant to mask the repressive action against the persons who had previously participated in these demonstrations, especially opinion leaders, as well as against anyone who manifested or was likely to manifest some form of opposition, especially students, intellectuals or persons expressing closeness to Western values.
„In order to conceal the attack, a scenario was constructed in order to lose track of the real attackers. An important component of this scenario was the public, manipulative communication regarding the danger that the demonstrators represented for democratic values. Given the scale of the attack, its implementation required the involvement of a very large number of people. In this respect, persons from the state leadership – Petre Roman, Gelu Voican-Voiculescu, as well as the SRI leadership, respectively Virgil Magureanu, with the participation of Adrian Sarbu, adviser to the prime minister, would have constituted, according to the administered evidence, a criminal group of systemic, heterogeneous type, of political, administrative, military and civilian nature, within which a large number of people were involved, with a contribution of different nature and content to deeds produced on an impressive scale. In the criminal picture, the persons who physically carried out the criminal acts occupied a lower position in the hierarchy of the group, but the conception and orchestration of committing crimes rested with the political leadership of the Romanian state at that time, through the persons mentioned,” prosecutors explain.
From the documents administered by prosecutors resulted the „secret complicity” at the level of planning and orchestrating the criminal plan, Petre Roman, Gelu Voican-Voiculescu and Virgil Magureanu, along with other decision-makers, playing the key roles, but the way they chose to implement it was through other persons, not participating in the agreement.
Investigators show that, starting with June 13, 1990, decision-makers at that time carried out a repressive action against the demonstrators in the University Square in Bucharest. This attack unlawfully involved forces of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of National Defense, SRI, as well as over ten thousand miners and other workers from several areas of the country.
The repressive action had the character of a generalized and systematic attack, in which the following acts were committed: death by shooting of four people; rape of two persons; injury to the physical or mental integrity of a total number of 1,315 people; persecution by unlawfully depriving a total of 1,214 persons of the fundamental right to liberty and security and the restriction of this right on political grounds.
Thus, on the morning of June 13, 1990, over two hundred people were picked up and transported to the Military Unit 0575 Magurele of the Ministry of Interior, where they were detained until the afternoon of the same day, when they were allowed to leave, after a brief investigation.
At the same time, the headquarters of the Institute of Architecture and the University of Bucharest were forcefully raided, several offices being searched, and the people inside were evacuated through acts of violence.
According to the decision made by political factors, leaders of law enforcement institutions, as well as by persons from the leadership of the National Salvation Front, workers from the Bucharest Heavy Machinery Enterprise (IMGB) were brought to the University Square, who manifested themselves violently, physically assaulting people in the area of the Institute of Architecture, after which they occupied the University Square, together with law enforcement, to prevent the return of demonstrators.
The actions taken by the state authorities generated a violent response from the opposition, so that the headquarters of the Bucharest Police, the Ministry of Interior, the Romanian Television and the Romanian Intelligence Service were set on fire.
War ammunition was used by law enforcement, and four people were shot dead.
The repression of the authorities continued, on June 14 and 15, 1990, through a systematic attack carried out together with miners and workers from several counties of the country, which had become a real force of order, parallel to those recognized and organized according to the law.
In this context, miners brought to Bucharest devastated the headquarters of newly established or re-established political parties after the December 1989 Revolution and which were in opposition, the homes of the main opposition political leaders and the headquarters of independent press publications and educational institutions. They also assaulted residents of Bucharest, under the pretext that they were connected with the demonstrations in University Square.
The persons who were taken from the University Square, together with others considered to be related to the demonstrations, were forcibly taken to the Military Unit 0575 Magurele and to the premises of the Superior Military School of Officers from Baneasa, being deprived of liberty in an illegal manner and in spaces totally unsuitable for the detention of persons. Their unlawful deprivation of liberty lasted until June 21, 1990 at the latest.
The accommodation of civilians brought from the streets of Bucharest was made in totally improper conditions, in garages, both men and women, minors and old people. These persons were constantly under military guard, not allowed to contact relatives or anyone else from outside, without receiving adequate medical care, and were subjected to demeaning and degrading treatment (including simulated collective executions or collective gassing by releasing exhaust gases into detention spaces).
The Prosecutor’s Office specifies that the retained state of affairs and the legal classification of the facts are based exclusively on the evidence administered after 04.06.2021, the date on which the case was returned to the Prosecutor’s Office, following the preliminary chamber procedure, following which all evidence administered prior to 2017 was annulled and the previously performed follow-up acts were found to be null.
Prosecutors must redo the investigation in this case after the evidence gathered by investigators was annulled in court.
Initially, in June 2017, former president Ion Iliescu and the other defendants were sent to trial for crimes against humanity, but in December 2020 the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ, Supreme Court, ed. n.) decided to return the file to the Military Prosecutor’s Office, in order to restore the investigation from scratch.
AGERPRES
