Former Romanian President, PM sent to court for crimes against humanity in “miners’ riot” case

Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu (left) and former Prime Minister Petre Roman (right) were sent to court for crimes against humanity in a case related to the violent crackdown of the protests in Bucharest’s University Square in June 1990. The events are also known as the miners’ riot in Romania, because Iliescu called the miners from Valea Jiului, Romania’s biggest mining region, some 300 kilometers west of Bucharest, to pacify the “punks” and “thugs” protesting in the University Square, in downtown Bucharest, and defend the country’s young democracy. After the miners dispersed the protesters, Iliescu thanked them for “answering our call”. However, he has denied calling the miners to Bucharest, claiming they came spontaneously. Four people were shot dead, three other were shot, and more than 1,200 were injured and illegally arrested between June 13 and June 15, 1990. The Romanian Supreme Court reopened the miners’ riot case, in March 2015. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) asked Romania to continue investigations in this case in September 2014. In October 2015, the General Prosecutor’s Office started the prosecution of former President Iliescu, former Prime Minister Petre Roman and several other former officials, the charge being “crimes against humanity”. Petre Roman was Romania’s Prime Minister from early 1990 until October 1991. After hearing hundreds of people in the past year, including Ion Iliescu, the prosecutors decided they had enough evidence to send the case to court. The other officials indicted in this case include former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican-Voiculescu, Dumitru Nicolae, the first vice president of the National Salvation Front (FSN), Virgil Magureanu, the former director of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), and retired general Mugurel Cristian Florescu, a former deputy general prosecutor and head of the military prosecutor’s office at the time of the events. According to the prosecutors, the defendants have decided, organized, and coordinated a generalized and systematic attack against the civil population, namely the protesters in Bucharest’s University Square, and Bucharest’s population. They involved the armed forces of the Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry, and SRI, and over 10,000 miners and workers brought from several regions. Romanian media investor Adrian Sarbu, the former owner of local private TV station PRO TV, was also indicted in this case, alongside six other people, for joining the coordinated attack and playing smaller roles in the events. Sarbu was Prime Minister Petre Roman’s chief of staff at the time of the events.