The judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided on Friday that the indictment in the „Revolution” case, in which former President Ion Iliescu is accused, contains irregularities and ordered the case to be sent back to the Military Prosecutor’s Office for a reinvestigation. The decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice is final.
On June 14, another panel from the supreme court found irregularities in the indictment and gave the Prosecutor’s Office a deadline to correct these irregularities.
As the Prosecutor's Office did not comply, the Supreme Court decided on Friday to return the case to the prosecutors.
On October 25, 2023, at the first instance court - the Bucharest Court of Appeal - it was decided to start the trial in the "Revolution" case, where Ion Iliescu, former Deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu, and Iosif Rus, former head of the Military Aviation, are accused of committing crimes against humanity.
At that time, the court found that the indictment prepared by the military prosecutors was legal.
The defendants appealed the decision to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, and the case was assigned in December 2023 to a panel of two judges. However, the two judges failed to agree on a decision, having divergent opinions.
Consequently, the case was reopened with Judge Lia Savonea joining the panel, and after a month of deliberations, the magistrates concluded that there were irregularities in the indictment.
The Case Dragged on for Over Four Years
Before reaching the Bucharest Court of Appeal, the "Revolution" case dragged on for over four years between the courts and the prosecution offices in Bucharest due to procedural reasons.
In the initial phase, Ion Iliescu was indicted by the Military Prosecutor's Office in April 2019, but the case was returned to the prosecutors over two years later by the judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, citing irregularities in the indictment.
At that time, the supreme court decided to exclude several pieces of evidence from the criminal investigation material, including "statements" containing the testimonies given by Gelu Voican Voiculescu and Ion Iliescu before the Senate Commission, reports from Parliament, an opinion from SRI, or archive documents from the Ministry of National Defense.
In August 2022, former Prosecutor General Gabriela Scutea announced the referral of the Revolution case back to the Supreme Court after the military prosecutors revised the indictment.
After six months, a judge from the preliminary chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that it was not within the competence of that court to judge this case and sent it to the Bucharest Court of Appeal.
Former President Ion Iliescu, former Deputy Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu, and former head of the Military Aviation Iosif Rus were indicted by the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice in the Revolution case for crimes against humanity.
Iliescu is accused of assuming, between December 22-30, 1989, the systematic operation of misleading the public opinion exercised by the military personnel in leadership positions at the Ministry of National Defense.
"These acts led to the generation and amplification of a widespread terrorism psychosis, a psychosis that caused numerous situations of generalized fratricidal fire and thus, between December 22-30, 1989, resulted in 857 deaths, 2382 injuries, 585 severe deprivations of liberty in violation of general rules of international law, and 409 cases of severe suffering," stated the prosecutors.