Summary execution illegal

Bucharest

An extremist Romanian political party said this week it will sue the state for “groundlessly” executing communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife. The couple was given a quick military trial and then executed on Christmas day in 1989, in Romania’s bloody version of the democratic revolutions that defeated communism in Eastern Europe. Ceausescu oppressed Romania for more than 20 years with the largest network of spies and informers in the region. But Sen. Dumitru Pop of the extreme-nationalist Greater Romania Party said that at least one of the charges brought against the two—that they attempted to flee Romania with $1 million—appears to have been trumped up. No such sum was ever found.