Article by Daniel Grigore – published Tuesday, 05 August 2025, 17:49 / Updated on Tuesday, August 2025 17:59
Ion Iliescu, the first president of Romania after the Revolution, died. Head of the state between 1990 and 1996, then between 2000 and 2004, Iliescu, charged in two files against humanity, was 95 years old.
The former leader of the FSN was admitted on June 9 in the Intensive Care of the Emergency Clinical Hospital “Prof. Dr. Agrippa Ionescu”. The first rumors were that problems of a respiratory nature brought Iliescu to the hospital, but the hospital representatives later revealed that the former president had lung cancer, for which he was operated on.
On August 2, the hospital representatives announced that the condition of the former president of Romania was damaged after the progressive installation of multiple organ dysfunctions, with severe respiratory impairment and significantly reduced ventilatory reserve.
Ion Iliescu, former president of Romania, died
The death was found on Tuesday, August 5, according to freedom.ro. The Romanian Government confirmed the news:
With deep regret, the government announces the termination of the former president of Romania, Mr. Ion Iliescu. The Government of Romania sends condolences to the family and to all those close!
In the following days, the Government will communicate the details about the state funerals that will be organized in honor of the first president after 1989.
Ion Iliescu was the head of the state in 3 lines: after the Revolution he was interim president, and in May 1990 elected president with full rights for a short term, for two years.
In 1992 he won a 4-year first term in the first elections held according to the new Constitution, in 1996 he lost before Emil Constantinescu, and in 2000 he returned to the head, defeating Corneliu Vadim Tudor in round 2.
Between 1996 and 2000, later between 2004 and 2008, he was a senator chosen on the PSD lists (PDSR in the first term).
How did Ion Iliescu save Steaua when he threatened the bankruptcy
Laurențiu Rosu, a former CSA commander, told in a book that Steaua was, at the end of the 1990s, close to bankruptcy.
Steaua had signed a contract for the modernization of the stadium with the company Tehrorob, a company that later sued the club. The builder claimed that his works were not paid and asked for the dissolution and liquidation of the Army Sports Club! Red tells in his book that he wrote to Ion Iliescu for rescue:
I met with Iliescu, as president of the Supreme Council of Defense of the country. I told him that on January 10, 2002 The Bucharest Court has been pronounced by a sentence, not yet dedicated, for the dissolution of CSA Steaua. And that the Ministry of National Defense considers that by this decision the court was empowered to rule on the abolition of a military unit, which creates a particularly dangerous precedent, with the obvious violation of the principle of separation in the state!
The red commander also told that the approach was successful:
The jurists of Ion Iliescu, from Cotroceni, confirmed that Steaua cannot be dissolved, since he has an indication of a military unit. Only CSAT could abolish military units, not a judge!
The club escaped and fired further from the debt to the construction company.
Part of the debt reached over 40 billion old lei paid Gigi Becali, who became a majority shareholder in the shares society that took place to the AFC Steaua NGO in the first league.
Cornel Dinu and the dialogue with Ion Iliescu: “The horns, the policy is a misery!”
In March 2019, the dynamovist legend Cornel Dinu told GSP Live how a dialogue had in 1968 with Ion Iliescu, at that time the secretary of the youth organization of the Romanian Communist Party (Union of the Working Youth).
“I had to talk to a congress. But I did not speak, I did not speak, I went to Bârlad for a funeral.
On the stairs, I met Ion Iliescu and said: “Mr. Iliescu, I missed my political career, I return to my right-wing Christians.” Iliescu tells me: “The horns, you lost nothing, the politics is a misery!”, Cornel Dinu recalled.
Accused for crimes against humanity in the mining file and the revolution file
Ion Iliescu was charged in the mining file of June 13-15, 1990, respectively in the Revolution file.
In the first file, recently sent to court, Ion Iliescu, Petre Roman and 6 other defendants are accused of crimes against humanity. Specifically, that “launched a repression policy against the civilian population in the capital, after which 4 people were killed, 2 people were rapedthe physical and/or mental integrity of more than 1,300 people were injured and over 1,200 people were persecuted by the illegal deprivation of freedom.
The file of the revolutionwith Ion Iliescu among the defendants, was sent by the JCCJ back to the Military Prosecutor's Office in September 2024, 35 years after the facts. And in that file to Iliescu is brought the accusation of crimes against humanity.
Specifically, it would have supported a systematic operation of misleading public opinion between December 22-30, 1989, a manipulation that had “as consequences the generation and amplification of the generalized psychosis of terrorism, psychosis causing numerous generalized fratricidal fires”.
“Thus, 857 deaths occurred, 2,382 injuries of persons, 585 serious freedom deprivations in violation of general rules of international law and 409 cases of large suffering”, According to the indictment of military prosecutors.
