Former Romanian president, PM to stand trial over 1990 riots

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Bucharest - Romania's military prosecutors sent former president Ion Iliescu and former prime minister Petre Roman to trial on Tuesday on charges of crimes against humanity over violent clashes in Bucharest in 1990. Prosecutors said Iliescu, Roman and several other officials

at the time used police as well as miners and other workers to

quash peaceful protests in Bucharest's iconic University Square,

resulting in the death of four people.

Another 1 388 people were injured and 1,250 protesters were

illegally detained during the clashes, which took place exactly

27 years ago on June 13-15.

The protests against Iliescu's rise to power after the 1989

fall of communism broke out in April, one month before the

country's first democratic election, which he won.

They carried on peacefully until June, when Iliescu summoned

thousands of miners and workers from counties across the country

to Bucharest to help police end what he and other officials

called a fascist coup attempt.

"State authorities ... decided to trigger a violent attack

against University Square protesters," prosecutors said in a

statement.

"The repression ... continued in a systematic attack

together with miners and workers from several counties which had

become a force parallel to the recognised legal ones."

Iliescu, now 87, has repeatedly denied accusations that he

engineered the violence, which Western observers said had

hampered Romania's transition to a market economy and deterred

foreign investment for years.

Miners descended repeatedly on the capital in the first

post-communist decade and were once a strong political force.

Reuters