Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu

Trial of the Ceaușescus
Part of Romanian Revolution
	Nicolae Ceaușescu (left), President of the Socialist Republic of Romania from 1974, also General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party since 1965, and his wife Elena Ceaușescu (right), were executed following trial on 25 December 1989.
Date	25 December 1989
Convicted	Nicolae Ceaușescu and Elena Ceaușescu
Charges	Genocide – over 60,000 victims; Subversion of state power by organising armed actions against the people and state power.; Destruction of public property by destroying and damaging buildings, explosions in cities, etc.; Undermining the national economy.; Attempting to flee the country using over $1 billion deposited in foreign banks.;
Sentence	Death

The trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu was held on 25 December 1989 by an Exceptional Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial created at the request of a newly formed group called the National Salvation Front. Its outcome was pre-determined, and it resulted in guilty verdicts and death sentences for former Romanian President and Romanian Communist Party General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu. The main charge was genocide. Romanian state television announced that Nicolae Ceaușescu had been responsible for the deaths of 60,000 people; the announcement did not make clear whether this was the number killed during the Romanian Revolution in Timișoara or throughout the 24 years of Ceausescu's rule.

Nevertheless, the charges did not affect the trial. General Victor Stănculescu had brought with him a specially selected team of paratroopers from a crack regiment, handpicked earlier in the morning to act as a firing squad. Before the legal proceedings began, Stănculescu had already selected the spot where the execution would take place: along one side of the wall in the barracks' square.

Nicolae Ceaușescu refused to recognize the tribunal, arguing its lack of constitutional basis and claiming that the revolutionary authorities were part of a Soviet plot.

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