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CEAUSESCU: I will only answer to the Grand National Assembly. There I
will say in which way he betrayed his fatherland.

PROSECUTOR: Please, ask Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu whether they have
ever had a mental illness.

CEAUSESCU: What? What should he ask us?

PROSECUTOR: Whether you have ever had a mental illness.

CEAUSESCU: What an obscene provocation.

PROSECUTOR: This would serve your defense. If you had had a mental
illness and admitted this, you would not be responsible for your acts.

ELENA: How can one tell us something like this? How can one
say something like this?

CEAUSESCU: I do not recognize this court.

PROSECUTOR: You have never been able to hold a dialogue with the people.
You were not used to talking to the people. You held monologues and the
people had to applaud, like in the rituals of tribal people. And today
you are acting in the same megalomaniac way. Now we are making a last
attempt. Do you want to sign this statement?

CEAUSESCU: No, we will not sign. And I also do not recognize the
counsel for the defense.

PROSECUTOR: Please, make a note: Nicolae Ceausescu refuses to
cooperate with the court-appointed counsel for the defense.

ELENA: We will not sign any statement. We will speak only at the
National Assembly, because we have worked hard for the people all our
lives. We have sacrificed all our lives to the people. And we will
not betray our people here.

The court notes that the investigations have been concluded. Then
follows the reading of the indictment.

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Chairman, we find the two accused guilty of having
committed criminal actions according to the following articles of the
penal code: Articles 162, 163, 165 and 357. Because of this
indictment, I call for the death sentence and the impounding of the
entire property of the two accused.

The counsel for the defense now takes the floor and instructs the
Ceausescus once again that they have the right to defense and that
they should accept this right.

COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE: Even though he — like her — committed
insane acts, we want to defend them. We want a legal trial. Only a
president who is still confirmed in his position can demand to speak
at the Grand National Assembly. If he no longer has a certain
function, he cannot demand anything at all. Then he is treated like
a normal citizen. Since the old government has been dissolved and
Ceausescu has lost his functions, he no longer has the right to be
treated as the president. Please make a note that here it has been
stated that all legal regulations have been observed, that this is a
legal trial. Therefore, it is a mistake for the two accused to refuse
to cooperate with us. This is a legal trial, and I honor them by
defending them.

At the beginning, Ceausescu claimed that it is a provocation to be
asked whether he was sick. He refused to undergo a psychiatric
examination. However, there is a difference between real sickness that
must be treated and mental insanity which leads to corresponding
actions, but which is denied by the person in question. You have acted
in a very irresponsible manner; you led the country to the verge of
ruin and you will be convicted on the basis of the points contained in
the bill of indictment. You are guilty of these offenses even if you
do not want to admit it. Despite this, I ask the court to make a
decision which we will be able to justify later as well. We must not
allow the slightest impression of illegality to emerge. Elena and
Nicolae Ceausescu should be punished in a really legal trial.

The two defendants should also know that they are entitled to a
counsel for defense, even if they reject this. It should be stated
once and for all that this military court is absolutely legal and that
the former positions of the two Ceausescus are no longer valid.
However, they will be indicted, and a sentence will be passed on the
basis of the new legal system. They are not only accused of offenses
committed during the past few days, but of offenses committed during
the past 25 years. We have sufficient data on this period. I ask the
court, as the plaintiff, to take note that proof has been furnished
for all these points, that the two have committed the offenses
mentioned. Finally, I would like to refer once more to the genocide,
the numerous killings carried out during the past few days. Elena and
Nicolae Ceausescu must be held fully responsible for this. I now ask
the court to pass a verdict on the basis of the law, because everybody
must receive due punishment for the offenses he has committed.

PROSECUTOR: It is very difficult for us to act, to pass a verdict on
people who even now do not want to admit to the criminal offenses that
they have committed during 25 years and admit to the genocide, not
only in Timisoara and Bucharest, but primarily also to the criminal
offenses committed during the past 25 years. This demonstrates their
lack of understanding. They not only deprived the people of heating,
electricity, and foodstuffs, they also tyrannized the soul of the
Rumanian people. They not only killed children, young people and
adults in Timisoara and Bucharest; they allowed Securitate members to
wear military uniforms to create the impression among the people that
the army is against them. They wanted to separate the people from the
army. They used to fetch people from orphans’ homes or from abroad
whom they trained in special institutions to become murderers of their
own people. You were so impertinent as to cut off oxygen lines in
hospitals and to shoot people in their hospital beds. The Securitate
had hidden food reserves on which Bucharest could have survived for
months, the whole of Bucharest.

ELENA: Whom are they talking about?

PROSECUTOR: So far, they have always claimed that we have built this
country, we have paid our debts, but with this they bled the country
to death and have hoarded enough money to ensure their escape. You
need not admit your mistakes, mister. In 1947, we assumed power, but
under completely different circumstances. In 1947, King Michael showed
more dignity than you. And you might perhaps have achieved the
understanding of the Rumanian people if you had now admitted your
guilt. You should have stayed in Iran where you had flown to.

ELENA (laughs): We do not stay abroad. This is our home.

PROSECUTOR: Esteemed Mr. Chairman, I have been one of those who, as a
lawyer, would have liked to oppose the death sentence, because it is
inhuman. But we are not talking about people. I would not call for
the death sentence, but it would be incomprehensible for the Rumanian
people to have to go on suffering this great misery and not to have it
ended by sentencing the two Ceausescus to death. The crimes against
the people grew year by year. They were only busy enslaving the people
and building up an apparatus of power. They were not really interested
in the people.