The Minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu, sent the Prosecutor General Alex Florența the requests for criminal prosecution of Petre Roman and Gelu-Voican Voiculescu, in the Mineriada/Miners Riot file from June 1990.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Justice, Alina Gorghiu forwarded to the Prosecutor General of the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice during Tuesday the criminal prosecution requests received from the President of Romania regarding Petre Roman, as a former Prime Minister of the Government of Romania between December 26, 1989 – September 26, 1991, for the facts that are the subject of the criminal file 47/P/2014 of the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice – Section of the Military and Gelu-Voican Voiculescu Prosecutor’s Offices, in as former Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Romania between December 28, 1989 and June 28, 1990, for the facts that are the subject of the same file.
“It is normal for there to be a great interest from the public, for there to be an emotion in society because in this criminal case we are talking about crimes against humanity. Mining represents a tragedy of our history about which Romanians, however, are waiting for the truth and the requests made today represent a signal that the investigation is moving forward. The judiciary has the obligation to clarify things and I have every conviction that it will,” said Alina Gorghiu, quoted in the press release.
Initially, in June 2017, former president Ion Iliescu was sent to court for crimes against humanity, along with former prime minister Petre Roman and former SRI director Virgil Măgureanu, but in December 2020 the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided to return the file to the Military Prosecutor’s Office , for rebuilding the investigation from scratch.
The judges then decided to cancel all the evidence collected by the prosecutors, having found the illegality of the indictment by which Ion Iliescu was sent to court, along with Petre Roman, Gelu Voican Voiculescu, Virgil Măgureanu, general (res.) Mugurel Cristian Florescu, admiral (res. ) Emil “Cico” Dumitrescu, Cazimir Ionescu, Adrian Sârbu and Miron Cozma.
Practically, the prosecutors have to redo the entire procedure, including asking for approval from the head of state for the indictment of Ion Iliescu.
The military prosecutors argued that, on June 11 and 12, 1990, the state authorities decided to launch a violent attack against the demonstrators in the University Square in Bucharest, who were campaigning mainly for the adoption of point 8 of the Timişoara Proclamation and expressed, in peaceful way, political opinions, in contradiction with those of the majority that formed the political power at that time.
In this attack, forces of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of National Defense, the SRI, as well as over 10,000 miners and other workers from several areas of the country were allegedly involved, illegally.
According to the Military Prosecutor’s Office, the attack was carried out in the morning of June 13, 1990, with the following consequences: the death by shooting of four people, the injury to the physical or mental integrity of a total number of 1,388 people, the deprivation of the fundamental right to freedom, for political reasons, of a total number of 1,250 people.
As part of this action, more than 200 people were picked up and transported to a military unit of the Ministry of the Interior in Măgurele, where they were detained until the afternoon of the same day, when they were allowed to leave after a brief investigation.
The former president Ion Iliescu was accused by the military prosecutors of being the one who gave the order for the forced evacuation of the demonstrators from the University Square, including by using some workers from the big enterprises in Bucharest.
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