Senate Speaker accused of lying on dissident Ursu’s son and of asking for favors in seeing his step father’s Securitate file

After making some statements on anti-communist dissidents, Senate Speaker Calin Popescu Taricenau, also ALDE chairman (PSD’s ruling partner) has got some tough retorts from the son of late anti-communist dissident Gheorghe Ursu, but also from historian Madalin Hodor, researcher at the National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) regarding the file of Tariceanu’s step father, Amedeo Lazarescu.

CNSAS researcher Hodor revealed that Tariceanu has asked to see his step father’s Securitate file “by skipping the queue”. Amadeo Lazarescu, the second husband of Tariceanu’s mother, was a Liberal politician and writer, who admitted he had collaborated with Securitate, the former Romanian communist secret police, when he was young and that he had been also paid for his information notes.

“Of course you want the file by skipping the queue, god forbid you wait in line for it, like the rest of the political prisoners who are coming to see their files after they had traveled by train all night long. You are used to not queuing for nothing,” Madalin Hodor posted on Facebook.

“This time I agree. You should take the file by skipping the queue, to the extra urgency and read it quietly. You will find out what meant to ruin lives and be a tool of Securitate for money”, the CNSAS historian argued.

“As for me, I don’t know why should I be more concerned: by your moral smallness or by the fact you want to be the president of this country“, Hodor concluded, also accusing Tariceanu of telling “fat lies” about dissident Ursu’s son.

ALDE leader told Digi 24 on Thursday evening that Andrei Ursu, the son of anti-communist dissident Gheorghe Ursu, murdered by the Securitate agents in prison, had been his student and that Andrei Ursu had shared his family’s tragedy with Tariceanu, “with great fear”.

However, Andrei Ursu had strongly denied Tariceanu’s statements, arguing he had never been Tariceanu’s student, that he had never met him and accusing the Senate Speaker of “wanting to associate with the cause and memory of a dissident”. Andrei Ursu also accused Tariceanu of “disgusting, petty political maneuver”.

“I knew about Gheorghe Ursu’s tragedy. His boy was my student and at that time, he came to tell me and one of our colleagues, for he was afraid that the entire story might have had consequences on him, as he was preparing to take his final faculty exam,” Tariceanu said, referring to the current discussion in mass media about another dissident Iulius Filip, whose release from prison would have been denied by the current Prosecutor General of Romania, Augustin Lazar, who was a prosecutor at Aiud Penitentiary at that time, during communism.

In retort, Andrei Ursu denied Tariceanu’s allegations. “I have never met Mr. Calin Popescu Tariceanu in person. He has not been my professor or lecturer at the university. I understand Mr Tariceanu was professor at the Constructions Faculty. I haven’t studied there, I was student at the Automation and Computers Faculty. When my father was killed in prison by the Securitate, I had not been a student for two years. I graduated faculty in 1983, so I couldn’t have been afraid that my father’s case could have had consequences on my faculty graduation diploma. So, politician Tariceanu’s statements are completely fake,” said Andrei Ursu, arguing they represent a “disgusting petty political maneuver”.

Following Andrei Ursu’s explanations, Calin Popescu Tariceanu admitted he had indeed not known him, blaming on “a regrettable confusion.” Yet, the Senate Speaker said that this error did not deserve “such sharp rebukes”.