Romania Court Delays Trial on Appeals Of Communist-Era Generals To 15 Yr Jail Term

Romania’s Supreme Court decided Monday to put off until January 26, 2009 the trial of the appeals of former high-ranking generals Athanasie Stanculescu and Mihai Chitac for the annulment of the sentence to 15 years in jail each for their role in killing demonstrators during the 1989 anti-communist revolution.

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Imaginea articolului Romania Court Delays Trial on Appeals Of Communist-Era Generals To 15 Yr Jail Term

Romania Court Delays Trial on Appeals Of Top Communist-Era Generals To 15 Yr Jail Term

The magistrates’ decision is grounded on the fact that the court’s final ruling sentencing the former generals to 15 years in jail each was not drafted.

On October 15, the Supreme Court sentenced Stanculescu and Chitac to 15 years in jail each. On October 16, Stanculescu’s lawyer, Alice Draghici, filed a request at the Bucharest Military Court for the interruption of her client’s jail term, and an appeal for the annulment of the sentence at the High Court of Justice.

On October 21, the Bucharest Military Court allowed the former generals’ requests for a medical expertise at the National Forensic Medicine Institute, meant to establish if they can carry out their sentence in prison and subsequently, medical examinations indicated that they suffer from chronic illnesses.

Chitac and Stanculescu were first sentenced in 1999 on aggravated murder charges for ordering troops to fire on demonstrators in Timisoara city, western Romania.

They appealed the ruling several times. The latest appeal was in 2007, when they were sentenced to 15 years in jail by the Supreme Court.

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