Gheorghe Ursu file: Prosecutors indict 4 persons for crimes against humanity and complicity

Military prosecutors have sent to the court the file regarding the death of dissident Gheorghe Ursu and 4 persons are to be indicted for crimes against humanity and complicity to crimes against humanity, in regard to the repressive actions against Ursu during the communist regime.

Thus, military prosecutors with the High Court for Cassation and Justice (ICCJ – Supreme Court) have indicted Marin Parvulescu (Major in reserve) and Vasile Hodis (Colonel in reserve), former officers with the 6^th Directorate for Criminal Investigations of the Securitate, both being charged with crimes against humanity.

In the same file are to be also indicted Gheorghe Homosteanu, former Minister of Interior and Tudor Postelnicu, former head of Securitate, both being charged of complicity to crimes against humanity.

According to military prosecutor Marian Lazar, during January-November 1985, dissident engineer Ursu Gheorghe Emil was the target of informative pursuit for deeds considered hostile to the communist regime. He was arrested on September 21, 1985 and died on November 17, 1985 at the Jilava Penitentiary Hospital. The Securitate invented, in order to keep away from the real purpose of investigation, charges of possession of forbidden foreign payment means. Actually, according to the evidence, the Securitate representatives were interested in the issues as follows: his relations and discussions with people in the literary and artistic circles in the country and in Diaspora, his opinions written in his personal diary about the state and party policy and about the state leaders, the prosecutor says.

Marian Parvulescu and Vasile Hodis, as officers with the 6^th Directorate of Securitate, “took systematic repressive actions (spying, tracking information, searches, systematic hearings, physical and mental violence) on the victim, engineer dissident Ursu Gheorghe Emil, actions that resulted in the serious physical and psychiatric sufferings and were likely to cause serious harm to the fundamental rights and freedoms, primarily the right to life,” the military prosecutors say.

George Homostean and Tudor Postelnicu – “they sent during October-November 1985, to the Romanian embassies in Paris and Washington, official documents by which they dissimulated the repressive and political character of the defendants actions – Major in reserve Parvulescu Marin and Colonel in reserve Hodis Vasile – against Ursu Gheorghe Emil, during the period when the latter was under informative and judiciary surveillance for opinions considered as hostile to the communist regime,” prosecutor Marian Lazar said.

The file will be judged by the High Court of Cassation and Justice.

Military prosecutors with the Supreme Court have begun the prosecution in the file regarding the death of the dissident Gheorghe Ursu, for crimes against humanity, related to the repression actions to which he was subjected during the communist regime on January 19, 2015.

The reopening of the prosecution in the files on Gheorghe Ursu’s death was confirmed on November 12, 2014, by the Military Court of Appeal Bucharest, which found the legality and the validity of this measure, after the Supreme Court invalidated the solutions of not indicting someone in this case.

Gheorghe Ursu’s son, Andrei Ursu, has been in hunger strike for 17 days in October and November 2014, protesting against the fact that his father’s file wasn’t reopened and that the former Securitate officer who coordinated the investigation that targeted him was not being indicted.

So far, three people were sentenced for the death of Gheorghe Ursu : Marian Clita, former cellmate of Gheorghe Ursu, Tudor Stanica, former Chief of Criminal Investigations’ Direction, and Mihail Creanga, former head of the Bucharest Militia Arrest.

Gheorghe Ursu died in the custody of Capital’s Militia, in 1985, having been systematically beaten by the investigators and by his cellmates. On July 1, 2014, he would have turned 88 years old.