The Chronology of a Trial That Never Happened

<<The "Babu Ursu" case - the most known and obvious crime of Ceusescu's dictatorship - remains a symbol for the Romanian revolution's freezing between insolence and indiference, established, in an almost balzacian way, as the moral "values" of the capitalist restauration with socialist agents, finding itself in the adjectival transition from "wild" to "compasionate" and "decent". After 11 years, no right or left government dared - paralised by who? - to judge and punish (even in an "un-insulting way", according to a brilliant word of Anton Golopentia) the assassins of the most impassionate and imprudent anti-Ceausescu intellectual. There is no compassion and no decency in the moral and judicial treatment of the Ursu "case". He is, without paling, the obsessing spot of intellectual blood on the consciousness of some friends, guilty for too much lucidity in their disillusionment. At least let's finish with our catastrophic naivetes - it is all that Babu, with his vital sarcasm, can still say to us.>>
(from a 2001 article by Radu Cosasu)

· Gheorghe Ursu (Babu), an engineer and poet, was arrested on the 21st of September 1985, and he died in the Jilava Penitentiary Hospital on the 17th of November 1985. In January 1990, immediately after the Romanian Revolution, his sister and his son, Andrei Ursu, addressed the new authorities, requesting the investigation of the responsibilities and circumstances regarding Gheorghe Ursu's death. The investigation was entrusted to the Military Prosecutor's Office and it was led by the magistrate Dan Voinea.
"It is evident from the coronary report that the death of the said Emil Gheorghe Ursu was a violent one and resulted from the generalized purulent peritonitis by the post-traumatic perforation of the intestine. It follows from the corroboration of the traumatic lesions from the chart, with the findings made in the surgical phase and at the autopsy, that the internal and external lesions could have been produced by repeated blows with contusive objects in the abdominal area, about 3-4 days earlier. There is a direct causal relationship between death and the lesions he had suffered."
(Indictment, year 2000, month November, day 20).

· Even from the initial stage of the investigation led by prosecutor Dan Voinea, it resulted that former superior officers of "Securitate" (Political Police) had directly instigated and participated in the extermination of engineer Gheorghe Ursu. The Indictment concluded on 31 Mars 1990 proposed the investigation of Gheorghe Ursu's case officer (this officer has also distinguished himself through cruelty during the repression of the Revolution of 1989!). Another two high-ranking officers proposed for investigation were: the chief of the Rahova Penitentiary in that period and the chief of the Criminal Investigations Division of IGM. The Military Prosecutor's Office didn't undertake anything for two years.

· The General Prosecutor Vasilea Manea Dragulin (in 1985 he had been the chief of the Department for criminal pursuits of the Bucharest Prosecutor's Office and in this position he had completely ignored the violent circumstances of Gheorghe Ursu's death!) sharply reassigned the case, only a few months after the beginning of the investigation, from general Voinea to general magistrate Samoil Joarza.

· In the course of the years 1994, 1995, 1996, general Joarza declared at each opportunity, during repeated audiences requested by Gheorghe Ursu's son, Andrei, that the investigation would end "in a month", "in a week", but he insisted that there would be indictment of the officers. "They would be indicted at most for neglecting their job responsibilities, and, in any case, the plaintiff has to know that a declaration appeared in the file that stated that his father had received the fatal blow from a cellmate."

· In April 1995, Marian Clita, an ordinary delinquent, a housebreaker, a cellmate at the moment of Gheorghe Ursu's death, called a press conference, contradicting his past declarations, and declared that he had killed Gheorghe Ursu with a deadly blow, an act "that is prescribed after ten years".

· As a result of the Ursu family's open letters and complaints, and under media pressure, in 1996, President Ion Iliescu, just before the elections, promised the case to be solved and the the guilty judged.

· Samoil Joarza's indictment was finished on 12 November 1996 with bringing Marian Clita, as only defendant, to trial for murder. The indictment also disposed, based on the same probative material used throughout the investigations, "that no penal investigation shall be started against Tudor Stanica for instigation to murder" nor for the other officers involved, although it was clear, even from Clita's declarations, and also from other testimonies, the role of Tudor Stanica as instigator, as well as the role of the prison chief, Creanga Mihail, and that of the Chief the the Securitate 6th deptartment, of Penal Investigations, Vasile Gheorghe.

· In the course of the years 1997-1998 the trial of Marian Clita had numerous episodes with stupefying overturns: from the voluntary self-indictment to the complete retraction of former declarations. The attitude of judges Iordanescu Simona, Fesiuc Rodica and Burdea Viorel, as well as that of prosecutor Matiesescu Elena have proved that the Romanian Justice system at the time, subservient to the former Securitate interests, just wanted to cover-up this case, and absolve even Clita from the murder accusation. Solely the judge Cristian Jipa requested, with a rare integrity for that time, on 11 Mars 1997, "…to investigate Tudor Stanica, Scarlet Gheorghe, Creanga Mihail, Damian Constantin and Radu Gheorghe, all these suspected of instigating, aiding and abetting, and favoring the defendant Clita Marian. Also, new judicial inquiries should be performed into the aiding and abetting, favoring and instigation to murder with respect to lt.-col. Turcitu Adrian, cpt. Dumitrache Ion, col. Anghel Corneliu, major Parvulescu Marin and lt. Hodis Vasile".

· After the Bucharest Military Tribunal convicted Clita of murder, the Bucharest Military Court of Appeals accepted Marian Clita's appeal against the decision and changed the judicial framing from murder to "death-causing blows" - a milder charge that had been amnistied.

· Again upon intense media criticism, on 29 June 2000 the trial of defendant Marian Clita concludes at the Supreme Court with a 20 years conviction, which according to Ceausescu's pardon decree no. 11/1988, was halfed to 10 years, and as Clita had already spent eight of these years in jail, he was left with only two years to execute. (Even before, Clita - a dangerous, repeat criminal - had benefitted from the generalized corruption in the Romanian judicial system. In one instance, he had been freed "on parole for his faultless behavior during detention.")

· Gheorghe Ursu's family continued the battle and appealed to the highest authorities: they sent numerous petitions both to the Justice Minister Valeriu Stoica and - on June 23, 2000 - to Romanian President Emil Constantinescu. Andrei Ursu was received by the President, who promised his support. Yet no progress was made. On the contrary, the investigation that was all but completed was taken away from Mr. Voinea, and buried by then Prosecutor General Mircea Criste, apparently with the Justice Minister's approval.

· In November 2000, Andrei Ursu declared a hunger-strike, 15 years after his father's death and 10 years after the beginning of the investigation: "There is enough evidence for the officers involved in my father's death to be brought to trial. There are over 50 testimonies of witnesses in general Voinea's investigation, showing that my father was murdered at the order of certain high-ranking officers… But, on orders from Attorney General Mircea Criste, the case was again shifted from general Voinea, this time to Stanca Vasile, a subordinate prosecutor, who has no experience with this file". The hunger srike provoked a strong media pressure, making Mircea Criste to give up. He returned the case to prosecutor Dan Voinea and requested "quick resolution".

· On November 22, 2000, according to general Voinea's indictment, three former officers were accused of direct involvement in Gheorghe Ursu's murder: col. (r.) Stanica Tudor, col. (r.) Creanga Mihail, and warrant officer (r.) Burcea Stefan, and were finally brought to court.