Hundreds gathered in Bucharest on Friday for the opening stage of former president Ion Iliescu's crimes against humanity trial

1 / 5Hundreds gathered in Bucharest on Friday for the opening stage of former president Ion Iliescu's crimes against humanity trial (AFP Photo/Daniel MIHAILESCU)

Bucharest (AFP) - On the morning of December 22, 1989, Bogdan Stan drank his usual cup of coffee and went to join the wave of protests against Romania's communist regime.

Shortly after, he was shot and killed in front of the state TV building.

Almost 30 years later, his mother Elena Bancila was one of around 600 victims and relatives who gathered Friday in Bucharest for the opening stage of former president Ion Iliescu's crimes against humanity trial -- the most prominent leader to face charges over those events.

Bancila, now 75, believes Iliescu, who took control of the government on December 22, is responsible for the death of her son.

The 89-year-old Iliescu, once a senior communist who served as the first president of post-revolution Romania, rejects the accusations.

Romania was the last Soviet satellite to overthrow a communist regime during a bloody revolution that began on 15 December 1989 in the western city of Timisoara.

Seven days later, hundreds of thousands took over the centre of Bucharest.

Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu fled in a helicopter on December 22, but it was only after his flight that most of the casualties occurred.

One was 62-year-old Gheorghe Preda, who told AFP outside the court how he lost an eye on December 23, when he was shot while Christmas shopping.

Preda told AFP he suspected "Iliescu's men" were behind his injury, adding: "Will we ever know the truth about those events? Maybe in 30 years, when we're all dead."

At the court on Friday the names of 5,000 civil parties to the case were read out.

The next hearing is expected on February 21.

- 'Assassin behind the assassins' -

Ceausescu was arrested along with his wife and executed on December 25 1989 after a summary trial.

Iliescu had already taken over and prosecutors say claims he made at the time about supposed terrorists loyal to Ceausescu increased the risk of "instances of friendly fire, chaotic shooting and contradictory military orders", with 862 people killed after December 22.

According to historian Madalin Hodor, the suggestion of the presence of "terrorists" was aimed at diverting attention from killings committed by Securitate secret police and the army in the weeks prior to Ceausescu’s fall.

Investigations into the revolution's bloody aftermath have been opened and closed several times in the past three decades, with many blaming powerful forces for preventing the truth from coming to light.

The failure to bring anyone to justice has fueled anger among survivors, and 60-year-old Aurel Dumitru, who was shot 12 times on the night of 22 December, sarcastically suggests another revolution might be needed.

He said the system "is going to end up punishing us for having stained the streets with our blood" rather than the political leaders.

"Iliescu is the assassin behind the assassins," said a sobbing Elena Bancila, who has kept her son's blood-stained trousers and bullet-pierced coat.

"He wanted to keep Romanians indoors, afraid that they would also rise up against communism's second tier, to which Iliescu belonged," she added.

- 'We were humiliated' -

Nicoleta Giurcanu, a slight 44-year-old woman with short blonde hair, is another victim who has spent years trying to "reconstruct the puzzle" of her traumatic experiences.

On 21 December, at the age of 14, she was arrested and detained after joining anti-Ceausescu protesters in central Bucharest alongside her brother and father.

"It was horrible, we were beaten, humiliated," she told AFP.

Separated from their father, Nicoleta and her brother were not released until the evening of December 23.

Nobody has ever been tried for the abuses.

She also holds Iliescu responsible, saying his party had "risen to power by taking advantage of the crimes of December 1989".

"I want to see Iliescu in prison if it's only one day," she says.

Bancila, who has preserved her son's unwashed coffee cup, thinks the trial might finally "wash the shame of a judiciary that pretended it was free".

"I've been waiting for justice for 30 years because they took my son's right to enjoy the freedom he was fighting for in the street", she said.