Rumania's Communist dictator from 1965 - 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu, and his wife and second-in-command Elena, were prosecuted by the National Salvation Front in a secret trial, held on a military base near Tirgoviste, Rumania, on Christmas Day, December 25th 1989.

General Gica Popa was the prosecutor.

Below are the officially reported transcripts.

(But is lies!  All lies!  Ceausescu lives!)

    UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: A glass of water!

NICOLAE CEAUSESCU: I only recognize the Grand National Assembly. I will only speak in front of it.

PROSECUTOR: In the same way he refused to hold a dialogue with the people, now he also refuses to speak with us. He always claimed to act and speak on behalf of the people, to be a beloved son of the people, but he only tyrannized the people all the time. You are faced with charges that you held really sumptuous celebrations  on all holidays at your house. The details are known.

These two defendants procured the most luxurious foodstuffs and clothes from  abroad. They were even worse than the king, the former king of Rumania. The people only received 200 grams per day, against an identity card. These two defendants have robbed the people, and not even today do they want to talk. They are cowards. We have data concerning both of them.

I ask the chairman of the prosecutor's office to read the bill of indictment.

CHIEF PROSECUTOR: Esteemed chairman of the court, today we have to
pass a verdict on the defendants Nicolae Ceausescu and Elena Ceausescu
who have committed the following offenses: Crimes against the people.
They carried out acts that are incompatible with human dignity and
social thinking; they acted in a despotic and criminal way; they
destroyed the people whose leaders they claimed to be. Because of the
crimes they committed against the people, I plead, on behalf of the 
victims of these two tyrants, for the death sentence for the two
defendants. The bill of indictment contains the following points:       

    Genocide, in accordance with Article 356 of the penal code.

Two: Armed attack on the people and the state power, in accordance with Article 163 of the penal code.

The destruction of buildings and state institutions, undermining of the national economy, in accordance with Articles 165 and 145 of the penal code. They obstructed the normal process of the economy.

PROSECUTOR: Did you hear the charges? Have you understood them?

CEAUSESCU: I do not answer, I will only answer questions before the Grand National Assembly. I do not recognize this court. The charges are incorrect, and I will not answer a single question here.

PROSECUTOR: Note, he does not recognize the points mentioned in the bill of indictment.

CEAUSESCU: I will not sign anything.

PROSECUTOR: This situation is known. The catastrophic situation of the
country is known all over the world.  Every honest citizen who worked
hard here until 22 December knows that we do not have medicines, that
you two have killed children and other people in this way, that there
is nothing to eat, no heating, no electricity.

    NICOLAE CEAUSESCU and ELENA deny this.

    PROSECUTOR: Who ordered the bloodbath in Timisoara.

    CEAUSESCU refuses to answer.

    PROSECUTOR: Who gave the order to shoot in Bucharest, for instance?

    CEAUSESCU: I do not answer.

    PROSECUTOR: Who ordered shooting into the crowd?  Tell us!

    ELENA (to Nicolae): Forget about them.  You see, there is no use in
       talking to these people.

    PROSECUTOR: Do you not know anything about the order to shoot?

    Nicolae reacts with astonishment.

    PROSECUTOR: There is still shooting going on.  Fanatics, whom you are
       paying.  They are shooting at children; they are shooting arbitrarily
       into the apartments.  Who are these fanatics?  Are they the people,
      or are you paying them?

    CEAUSESCU: I will not answer.  I will not answer any question.  Not a
       single shot was fired in Palace Square.  Not a single shot.  No one was
       shot.

    PROSECUTOR: By now, there have been 34 casualties. 

    ELENA: Look, and that they are calling genocide.

    PROSECUTOR: In all district capitals, which you grandly called
       municipalities, there is shooting going on.  The people were slaves.
      The entire intelligentsia of the country ran away.  No one wanted to
       do anything for you anymore.

    UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, I would like to know something:
       The accused should tell us who the mercenaries are.  Who pays them?
       And who brought them into the country?

    PROSECUTOR: Yes.  Accused, answer.

    CEAUSESCU: I will not say anything more.  I will only speak at the
       Grand National Assembly.

    ELENA whispers to CEAUSESCU.

    PROSECUTOR: Elena has always been talkative, but otherwise she does
       not know much.  I have observed that she is not even able to read
       correctly, but she calls herself a university graduate.

    ELENA: The intellectuals of this country should hear you, you and
       your colleagues.

    PROSECUTOR cites all academic titles she had always claimed to have.

    ELENA: The intelligentsia of the country will hear what you are
       accusing us of.

    PROSECUTOR: Nicolae Ceausescu should tell us why he does not answer
       our questions.  What prevents him from doing so?

    CEAUSESCU: I will answer any question, but only at the Grand National
       Assembly, before the representatives of the working class.  Tell the
       people that I will answer all their questions.  All the world should
       know what is going on here.  I only recognize the working class and the
       Grand National Assembly -- no one else.

    PROSECUTOR: The world already knows what has happened here.

    CEAUSESCU: I will not answer you putschists.

    PROSECUTOR: The Grand National Assembly has been dissolved.

    CEAUSESCU: This is not possible at all.  No one can dissolve the
       National Assembly.

    PROSECUTOR: We now have another leading organ.  The National Salvation
       Front is now our supreme body.

    CEAUSESCU: No one recognizes that.  That is why the people are fighting
       all over the country.  This gang will be destroyed.  They organized the
       putsch.

    PROSECUTOR: The people are fighting against you, not against the new
       forum.

    CEAUSESCU: No, the people are fighting for freedom and against the new
       forum.  I do not recognize the court.

    PROSECUTOR: Why do you think that people are fighting today?  What do
       you think?

    CEAUSESCU: As I said before, the people are fighting for their freedom
       and against this putsch, against this usurpation.

    CEAUSESCU claimes the putsch was organized from abroad.

    CEAUSESCU: I do not recognize this court.  I will not answer any more.
       I am now talking to you as simple citizens, and I hope that you will
       tell the truth.  I hope that you do not also work for the foreigners
      and for the destruction of Rumania.

       The Prosecutor asks the Counsel for the defense to ask Ceausescu
       whether he knows that he is no longer president of the country, and 
       that Elena Ceausescu has also lost all her official state functions,
        and that the government has been dissolved.  The Prosecutor wants to
       learn on what basis the trial may continue.  It must be cleared up 
       whether Ceausescu wants to, should, must or can answer at all.
       The situation is uncertain.

       The Counsel for the defense, who was appointed by the court, asks
       whether Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu know the aforementioned facts --
       that he is no longer president, and that she has lost all official
       functions. 

    CEAUSESCU: I am the president of Rumania, and I am the commander-in-
       chief of the Rumanian army.  No one can deprive me of these functions.

    PROSECUTOR: But not of our army, you are not the commander in chief of
       our army.

    CEAUSESCU: I do not recognize you. I am talking to you as simple
       citizens at the least, as simple citizens, and I tell you, I am the
       president of Rumania.

    PROSECUTOR: What are you really?

    CEAUSESCU: I repeat, I am the president of Rumania and the commander
       in chief of the Rumanian army.  I am the president of the people.  I
       will not speak with you provocateurs anymore, and I will not speak
       with the organizers of the putsch and with the mercenaries.  I have
       nothing to do with them.

    PROSECUTOR: Yes, but you are paying the mercenaries. 

    CEAUSESCU: No, no.

    ELENA: It is incredible what they are inventing, incredible.

    PROSECUTOR: Please, make a note.  Ceausescu does not recognize the new
       legal structures of power of the country.  He still considers himself
       to be the country's president and the commander in chief of the army.

       Why did you ruin the country so much?  Why did you export everything?
       Why did you make the peasants starve?  The produce which the peasants
       grew was exported, and the peasants came from the most remote
       provinces to Bucharest and to the other cities in order to buy bread.
       They cultivated the soil in line with your orders and had nothing to
       eat.  Why did you starve the people?

    CEAUSESCU: I will not answer this question.  As a simple citizen, I
       tell you the following: for the first time I guaranteed that every
       peasant received 200 kilograms of wheat per person, not per family,
       and that he is entitled to more.  It is a lie that I made the people
       starve.  A lie, a lie in my face.  This shows how little patriotism
      there is, how many treasonable offenses were committed.

    PROSECUTOR: You claim to have taken measures so that every peasant is
       entitled to 200 kilograms of wheat.  Why do the peasants then buy their
       bread in Bucharest? 

       The prosecutor quotes Ceausescu's program.

    PROSECUTOR: We have wonderful programs.  Paper is patient.  However, why
       are your programs not implemented?  You have destroyed the Rumanian
       villages and the Rumanian soil.  What do you say as a citizen?

    CEAUSESCU: As a citizen, as a simple citizen, I tell you the
      following: at no point was there such an upswing, so much
       construction, so much consolidation in the Rumanian provinces.  I
       guaranteed that every village has its schools, hospitals and doctors.
       I have done everything to create a decent and rich life for the people
       in the country, like in no other country in the world.

    PROSECUTOR: We have always spoken of equality. We are all equal.
       Everybody should be paid according to his performance.  Now we finally
       saw your villa on television, the golden plates from which you ate,
       the foodstuffs that you had imported, the luxurious celebrations,
       pictures from your luxurious celebrations.

    ELENA: Incredible.  We live in a normal apartment, just like every other
       citizen.  We have ensured an apartment for every citizen through 
      corresponding laws.

    PROSECUTOR: You had palaces.

    CEAUSESCU: No, we had no palaces.  The palaces belong to the people.

       The prosecutor agrees, but stresses that they lived in them while the
       people suffered.

    PROSECUTOR: Children cannot even buy plain candy, and you are living
       in the palaces of the people.

    CEAUSESCU: Is it possible that we are facing such charges?

    PROSECUTOR: Let us now talk about the accounts in Switzerland, Mr.
       Ceausescu.  What about the accounts?

    ELENA: Accounts in Switzerland?  Furnish proof!

    CEAUSESCU: We had no account in Switzerland. Nobody has opened an
      account.  This shows again how false the charges are.  What defamation,
       what provocations!  This was a coup d'etat.

    PROSECUTOR: Well, Mr. Defendant, if you had no accounts in Switzerland,
       will you sign a statement confirming that the money that may be in 
       Switzerland should be transferred to the Rumanian state, the State Bank. 

    CEAUSESCU: We will discuss this before the Grand National Assembly.  I
       will not say anything here.  This is a vulgar provocation.

    PROSECUTOR: Will you sign the statement now or not?

    CEAUSESCU: No, no. I have no statement to make, and I will not sign one.

    PROSECUTOR: Note the following: the defendant refuses to sign this
       statement.  The defendant has not recognized us.  He also refuses to
       recognize the new forum. 

    CEAUSESCU: I do not recognize this new forum.

    PROSECUTOR: So you know the new forum. You have information about it.

    ELENA & NICOLAE: Well, you told us about it.  You told us about it here.

    CEAUSESCU: Nobody can change the state structures.  This is not possible.
       Usurpers have been punished severely during the past centuries in
      Rumania's history.  Nobody has the right to abolish the Grand National 
       Assembly.

    PROSECUTOR (to Elena): You have always been wiser and more ready to talk, 
       a scientist.  You were the most important aide, the number two in the
       cabinet, in the government.  Did you know about the genocide in Timisoara?

    ELENA: What genocide?  By the way, I will not answer any more questions.

    PROSECUTOR: Did you know about the genocide or did you, as a chemist,
      only deal with polymers?  You, as a scientist, did you know about it?

    CEAUSESCU: Her scientific papers were published abroad!

    PROSECUTOR: And who wrote the papers for you, Elena?

    ELENA: Such impudence!  I am a member and the chairwoman of
       the Academy of Sciences.  You cannot talk to me in such a way!

    PROSECUTOR: That is to say, as a deputy prime minister you did not
       know about the genocide?  This is how you worked with the pwople and 
       exercised your functions! But who gave the order to shoot?  Answer
       this question!

    ELENA: I will not answer.  I told you right at the beginning that I
       will not answer a single question.

    CEAUSESCU: You as officers should know that the government cannot give
       the order to shoot.  But those who shot at the young people were the
       security men, the terrorists.

    ELENA: The terrorists are from Securitate.

    PROSECUTOR: The terrorists are from Securitate?

    ELENA: Yes.

    PROSECUTOR: And who heads Securitate?  Another question...

    ELENA: No, I have not given an answer. This was only information 
       for you as citizens.

    CEAUSESCU: I want to tell you as citizens that in Bucharest...

PROSECUTOR: We are finished with you. You need not say anything else.  The next question is:  How did General Milea [Vasile Milea, Ceausescu's Defense Minister} die?  Was he shot?  And by whom?

ELENA: Ask the doctors and the people, but not me!

CEAUSESCU: I will ask you a counter-question.  Why do you not put the question like this:  Why did General Milea commit suicide?

PROSECUTOR: What induced him to commit suicide?  You called him a traitor.  This was the reason for his suicide.

CEAUSESCU: The traitor Milea committed suicide.

    

PROSECUTOR: Why did you not bring him to trial and have him sentenced?

     CEAUSESCU: His criminal acts were only discovered after he had committed 
       suicide.

     PROSECUTOR: What were his criminal acts? 

     CEAUSESCU: He did not urge his unit to do their patriotic duty.

       Ceausescu explains in detail that he only learned from his officers
      that General Milea had committed suicide.

    PROSECUTOR: You have always been more talkative than your colleague.
       However, she has always been at your side and apparently provided you
       with the necessary information.  However, we should talk here openly
       and sincerely, as befits intellectuals.  For, after all, both of you
      are members of the Academy of Sciences.

       Now tell us, please, what money was used to pay for your publications
       abroad -- the selected works of Nicolae Ceausescu and the scientific
       works of the so-called Academician Elena Ceausescu.

    ELENA: So-called, so-called.  Now they have even taken away all our 
       titles.

    PROSECUTOR: Once again, back to General Milea.  You said that he had not
      obeyed your orders.  What orders?

    CEAUSESCU: I will only answer to the Grand National Assembly.  There I
       will say in which way he betrayed his fatherland.

    PROSECUTOR: Please, ask Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu whether they have
       ever had a mental illness.

    CEAUSESCU: What?  What should he ask us?

    PROSECUTOR: Whether you have ever had a mental illness.

    CEAUSESCU: What an obscene provocation.

    PROSECUTOR: This would serve your defense.  If you had had a mental
       illness and admitted this, you would not be responsible for your acts.

    ELENA: How can one tell us something like this?  How can one
       say something like this?

    CEAUSESCU: I do not recognize this court.

    PROSECUTOR: You have never been able to hold a dialogue with the people.
       You were not used to talking to the people.  You held monologues and the
       people had to applaud, like in the rituals of tribal people.  And today 
       you are acting in the same megalomaniac way.  Now we are making a last
       attempt.  Do you want to sign this statement?

    CEAUSESCU: No, we will not sign.  And I also do not recognize the
       counsel for the defense.

    PROSECUTOR: Please, make a note: Nicolae Ceausescu refuses to
       cooperate with the court-appointed counsel for the defense.

    ELENA: We will not sign any statement.  We will speak only at the
       National Assembly, because we have worked hard for the people all our
       lives.  We have sacrificed all our lives to the people.  And we will
       not betray our people here.

       The court notes that the investigations have been concluded.  Then
       follows the reading of the indictment.

    PROSECUTOR: Mr. Chairman, we find the two accused guilty of having
      committed criminal actions according to the following articles of the
       penal code: Articles 162, 163, 165 and 357.  Because of this
       indictment, I call for the death sentence and the impounding of the
       entire property of the two accused.

       The counsel for the defense now takes the floor and instructs the
       Ceausescus once again that they have the right to defense and that
       they should accept this right.

    COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE: Even though he -- like her -- committed
       insane acts, we want to defend them. We want a legal trial.  Only a
       president who is still confirmed in his position can demand to speak
       at the Grand National Assembly.  If he no longer has a certain
       function, he cannot demand anything at all.  Then he is treated like 
       a normal citizen.  Since the old government has been dissolved and
       Ceausescu has lost his functions, he no longer has the right to be
       treated as the president.  Please make a note that here it has been
       stated that all legal regulations have been observed, that this is a
       legal trial.  Therefore, it is a mistake for the two accused to refuse
      to cooperate with us.  This is a legal trial, and I honor them by
       defending them.

       At the beginning, Ceausescu claimed that it is a provocation to be
       asked whether he was sick.  He refused to undergo a psychiatric
       examination.  However, there is a difference between real sickness that
       must be treated and mental insanity which leads to corresponding
       actions, but which is denied by the person in question.  You have acted
       in a very irresponsible manner; you led the country to the verge of
     ruin and you will be convicted on the basis of the points contained in
       the bill of indictment.  You are guilty of these offenses even if you
       do not want to admit it.  Despite this, I ask the court to make a
       decision which we will be able to justify later as well.  We must not
       allow the slightest impression of illegality to emerge.  Elena and
       Nicolae Ceausescu should be punished in a really legal trial.

       The two defendants should also know that they are entitled to a
       counsel for defense, even if they reject this.  It should be stated
       once and for all that this military court is absolutely legal and that
       the former positions of the two Ceausescus are no longer valid.
       However, they will be indicted, and a sentence will be passed on the
       basis of the new legal system.  They are not only accused of offenses
       committed during the past few days, but of offenses committed during
       the past 25 years.  We have sufficient data on this period.  I ask the
       court, as the plaintiff, to take note that proof has been furnished
       for all these points, that the two have committed the offenses
       mentioned.  Finally, I would like to refer once more to the genocide,
       the numerous killings carried out during the past few days.  Elena and
       Nicolae Ceausescu must be held fully responsible for this.  I now ask
       the court to pass a verdict on the basis of the law, because everybody
      must receive due punishment for the offenses he has committed.

    PROSECUTOR: It is very difficult for us to act, to pass a verdict on
       people who even now do not want to admit to the criminal offenses that
       they have committed during 25 years and admit to the genocide, not
       only in Timisoara and Bucharest, but primarily also to the criminal
       offenses committed during the past 25 years.  This demonstrates their
       lack of understanding.  They not only deprived the people of heating,
       electricity, and foodstuffs, they also tyrannized the soul of the
       Rumanian people.  They not only killed children, young people and
       adults in Timisoara and Bucharest; they allowed Securitate members to
       wear military uniforms to create the impression among the people that
       the army is against them.  They wanted to separate the people from the
       army.  They used to fetch people from orphans' homes or from abroad
       whom they trained in special institutions to become murderers of their
       own people.  You were so impertinent as to cut off oxygen lines in
       hospitals and to shoot people in their hospital beds.  The Securitate
       had hidden food reserves on which Bucharest could have survived for
       months, the whole of Bucharest.

    ELENA: Whom are they talking about?

    PROSECUTOR: So far, they have always claimed that we have built this
       country, we have paid our debts, but with this they bled the country
       to death and have hoarded enough money to ensure their escape.  You
       need not admit your mistakes, mister.  In 1947, we assumed power, but
       under completely different circumstances.  In 1947, King Michael showed
       more dignity than you.  And you might perhaps have achieved the
       understanding of the Rumanian people if you had now admitted your
       guilt.  You should have stayed in Iran where you had flown to.

    ELENA (laughs): We do not stay abroad. This is our home.

    PROSECUTOR: Esteemed Mr. Chairman, I have been one of those who, as a
       lawyer, would have liked to oppose the death sentence, because it is
       inhuman.  But we are not talking about people.  I would not call for 
       the death sentence, but it would be incomprehensible for the Rumanian
       people to have to go on suffering this great misery and not to have it
       ended by sentencing the two Ceausescus to death.  The crimes against
       the people grew year by year.  They were only busy enslaving the people
       and building up an apparatus of power.  They were not really interested
       in the people. 

       Immediately following the trial, Nicolae & Elena Ceausescu were taken out 
       into the courtyard and executed by firing squad.
 
 

      The Prosecutor, General Gica Popa, died within three months, in March 1990. 
       His death was reported to be a suicide.

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