The brother of the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu went on trial Tuesday, accused of murdering seven people during December's bloody revolution that ended more than 40 years of Communist rule.
Nicolae Andruta Ceausescu, 66, a former deputy interior minister and police general, is charged with "aggravated murder," instigation to commit genocide and attempted murder in efforts to suppress the revolt that ended his brother's 24-year hold on power.Andruta Ceausescu, sitting in the dock flanked by two white-helmeted policemen and bearing an eerie physical resemblance to his late brother, gazed impassively at a three-man panel of military judges headed by Col. Igon Dima.
According to the indictment, the defendant ordered some 1,000 police cadets under his command to fire on thousands of demonstrators in the streets of the capital on Dec. 21-22. When they refused, he allegedly personally shot seven protesters. He was arrested the next day.
The Romanian penal code says "aggravated murder" is the slaying of more than one person.
Ceausescu denied the accusations, admitting only to the lesser charge of illegal possession of firearms.
"I did not give any orders on my own initiative to repress the demonstrators, but I passed on through my aides the orders I received from the minister of interior," he told the court.
The trial, expected to last through the week, took place in a converted theater hall forming part of a heavily guarded police base on the outskirts of Bucharest.
Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled Dec. 22 and executed three days later with his wife, Elena, after a summary trial before a military tribunal.
Following their execution, the death sentence was abolished by the provisional leadership that took power in the chaos of the revolution.
If found guilty, the maximum penalty Andruta Ceausescu can face is life imprisonment.
Four of the former president's closest aides were sentenced to life imprisonment by a military tribunal last month. His two sons and daughter are also in custody awaiting trial, likely to open in late April or early May, Romanian reporters said.
The proceedings against Ceausescu began a day after a mass demonstration in Bucharest commemorating the 100th day of the anti-Ceausescu revolution.
Led by several opposition parties, about 10,000 people marched through the capital, chanting anti-government and anti-communist slogans.