ROMANIAN PRESIDENT PARDONS EX-COMMUNISTS.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. With a last-minute pardon of six former Communist comrades, outgoing President An outgoing president is a president or, generally, other head of state or government when he holds office between the election of his successor and the inauguration by which that successor assumes power. Ion Iliescu Ion Iliescu (born March 3, 1930) is a Romanian politician. He was the elected President of Romania for eleven years (three terms), from 1990 to 1992, 1992 to 1996, and 2000 to 2004. has now pardoned all but one of the ex-Communist leaders jailed during his leadership of Romania. As Iliescu hands over power on Friday, the only former Communist still in jail is Constantin Dascalescu, the last premier under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He has refused to apply for a pardon. Late Wednesday, state television said Iliescu had pardoned six members of the last Communist Politburo politburo, the former central policy-making and governing body of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and, with minor variations, of other Communist parties. under Ceausescu, who was ousted and executed in a bloody revolt in December 1989. Among them were Dumitru Popescu, Ceausescu's propaganda chief, and Lina Ciobanu, a former deputy prime minister A Deputy Prime Minister or Vice Prime Minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting Prime Minister when the real Prime Minister is temporarily absent. . Iliescu, 66, will hand over power today to Emil Constantinescu Emil Constantinescu (born November 19, 1939 in Tighina, currently in the Republic of Moldova) was President of Romania from 1996 to 2000. He graduated from the law school of the University of Bucharest, and subsequently started a career as a geologist. , a former geology professor who won a presidential runoff on Nov. 17. Iliescu, a Communist minister who fell foul of Ceausescu in the early 1970s, has ruled Romania since the dictator was ousted. His exact path to power has never been clarified. Iliescu has always said he took the helm during the popular uprising. Some of his critics have charged that he staged a coup on the back of the anti-Communist revolt, in which more than 1,000 people were killed. Iliescu won elections in 1990 and 1992. During his tenure, dozens of former Communists sentenced to jail have been freed, officially on health grounds. They included Ceausescu's son Nicu, who died two months ago in a Vienna hospital. The six former Politburo members pardoned Wednesday were sentenced in 1991 to between 11 and 14 years in jail for their part in Communist repression. All were already out of prison, freed on health grounds. As president, Iliescu sometimes used pardons to win favor. In a move to bolster relations with the West, and with Britain in particular, he pardoned a British couple last year who had paid for, and tried to smuggle smug·gle v. smug·gled, smug·gling, smug·gles v.tr. 1. To import or export without paying lawful customs charges or duties. 2. To bring in or take out illicitly or by stealth. , a baby girl out of Romania. In 1994, he also pardoned several Communists, including some ethnic Hungarians, in what was widely seen as a bid to improve relations with the ethnic Hungarian minority. On Wednesday, Iliescu pardoned two journalists sentenced to jail for libeling authorities in the Black Sea port of Constanta. He pointedly did not pardon two other journalists who were sentenced earlier this year to jail after writing that Iliescu once worked for the KGB KGB: see secret police. KGB Russian Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (“Committee for State Security”) Soviet agency responsible for intelligence, counterintelligence, and internal security. secret police in the former Soviet Union. They are not yet serving their sentences pending appeal. |
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