Roumanie : révolution manipulation (1990): (IV. The Suicide of Gica Popa, the Judge who Presided over the Ceausescu Trial)
Broadcast 17 May 1990. It appears it was filmed sometime mid-April to early May 1990 in Romania.
https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/roumanie-revolution-manipulation-1990-ii-nica-leon-un-simple-citoyen/
https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/roumanie-revolution-manipulation-1990-iii-tirgoviste-a-nervous-recruit-recounts-the-resident-securitate-officer-in-the-barracks-summarily-questioned-the-10-15-terrorist-suspects-and-releas/
https://youtu.be/suAsOU2-XDA
From approx. min 33:35 to 36:00 we hear the story of the suicide of Popa Gica, the judge who presided over the trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu on 25 December 1989, on 1 March 1990. We see the modest apartment bloc he and his family lived in and we hear from his wife and daughter, in Romanian, with partial French subtitles.
Eleo(Nora) Popa, his wife, could not be more clear (min 34:10 to 34:34): she blames the climate of “fear and terror” that Gica Popa had been living with since 25 December 1989. Who does she believe created that climate of “fear and terror”?
She states bluntly: those who still love Ceausescu, those who surrounded him, those who supported him, those who benefited from his regime and ended up in positions of responsibility (including the protection of her husband after 25 December 1989), in particular the Justice Ministry and its Minister, Teofil Pop. She accuses the latter of the negligence which she believes led her husband to conclude that “there was no other solution” but to take his own life.
Gica Popa’s daughter adds at 35:37 that her father did not feel any sense of guilt for sentencing the Ceausescus.
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That Gica Popa took his own life (the existence of a suicide note, note, is in stark contrast with the absence of one by contrast from General Vasile Milea on 22 December 1989), that he feared for his own life, and that his widow and daughter did not trust and held Minister of Justice Teofil Pop at least indirectly responsible is confirmed by some of what appeared in the press in early 1990.
Judge Who Sentenced Ceausescus to Death Kills Himself
DAN PETREANU March 2, 1990 BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) _ The head of the military tribunal that condemned Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife to death has committed suicide, officials said today. Maj. Gen. Gica Popa shot himself in the head Thursday at his office in the Ministry of Justice, Justice Minister Teofil Pop told a news conference. Popa was rushed to the Bucharest military hospital, where he died two hours later with his wife and daughter by his side, Pop said. The military officer left a suicide note that asked for forgiveness, but did not explain the motive for his act. ADVERTISEMENT Pop said the suicide was the result of a ″very grave depression″ and said ″it is possible″ that it was related to the Ceausescu trial. A source close to the family, however, said that Popa had been troubled by anonymous death threats, apparently from Ceausescu loyalists, for the past two months. Pop said that he had recently asked Popa if he had been threatened after the trial, and the major-general said no. The justice minister also confirmed that Popa’s voice was the one heard on the video-recording of the Dec. 25 trial of Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, which was broadcast repeatedly on Romanian and international television. The angry voice was heard interrogating the pair and then announcing that they had been sentenced to death for crimes against the Romanian people. The couple was then executed. The identity of the person was not made public earlier ″to protect the judges while there were still terrorists around,″ Pop said. He used the word ″terrorists″ to refer to members of Ceausescu’s secret police force, who fought revolutionary forces for about a week after the dictator was toppled Dec. 22. Pop said Popa, who was the head of the Military Territorial Tribunal, ″had extraordinary prestige and was one of our best judges.″ The prosecutor-general’s office and police were investigating Popa’s death, officials said. News of the suicide coincided with the start of a trial in Timisoara of 21 former secret police officers charged in connection with scores of deaths in that city, where the revolution began. It was the first trial of ex-officials accused of trying to crush the revolution before it spread across the country. https://apnews.com/article/333ba6b990210eb49bd73b5f3d397918
POST SCRIPTUM LA “ULTIMA ORĂ” DE IERI.
Din cele afirmate de domnii T. Pop, ministrul de justiţie, şi I. Nistor, colonel de justiţie, rezultă că actul disperat comis de colonelul de justiţie Popa Gică – fost preşedinte al completului de judecată al celor doi ceauşeşti – se datoreşte unei stări psihice depresive accentuate, cu rădăcini mai adînci, aşa cum a rezultat dintr-o convorbire cu soţia defunctului. Încă de acum 10 ani, acest om cu calităţi profesionale excepţionale, a avut o cădere psihică datorată unor conflicte avute cu unii dintre membrii familiei sale. Colegii săi, toţi cei care l-au înconjurat, afirmă marea” sa valoare umană şi profesională, calmul său desăvîrşit, competenţa sa în ceea ce priveşte rezolvarea unor situaţii şi problematici juridice deosebite, ceea ce a făcut să fie ales pentru a judeca acest caz de importanţă unică pe care l-a constituit procesul inculpaţilor nicolae şi elena ceauşescu. În cadrul conferinţei de presă, domnii Teofil Pop şi Ioan Nistor au afirmat că actul sinuciderii, lui Gică Popa nu este nicidecum legat de primirea unor ameninţări la adresa sa personală, a membrilor familiei sau, aşa cum a arătat în mod special domnul Nistor Ioan, la adresa completului de judecată. Este, din nefericire, aşa cum a arătat-o ultima scrisoare adresată familiei, un act unilateral, disperat, al unui om ce s-a aflat într-o criză morală gravă. Mihaela RĂDULESCU
Libertatea din 3 martie 1990, pag. a 2-a https://www.amosnews.ro/remember-3-martie-1990-presa-acum-25-de-ani-2015-03-03
Scrisoarea generalului GICĂ POPA adresată familiei
Scumpele mele, Ştiu că vă produc o mare durere, dar altă soluţie nu există. Teama şi Spaima mă stăpînesc total şi îmi dau seama că pe zi ce trece mă degradez moral şi fizic şi nu doresc să vă stric şi vouă viaţa. Trebuie ca eu să dispar ca voi să puteţi trăi în linişte, fără teamă. Draga mea soţie adu-ţi aminte de clipele frumoase petrecute împreună. Fii înţeleaptă şi tare, aşa cum ai fost întotdeauna în clipele grele. Sorela scumpă îţi doresc să te căsătoreşti cit mai curînd, să ai noroc, să fii o soţie şi mamă bună. Să ai grijă de mama ta. Nora te rog din suflet să insişti să nu se facă autopsie, iar locul de veci să fie la Cimitirul Sf. Vineri unde să fie cineva drag. Nu accepta să fiu îmbrăcat militar, iar în privinţa hainelor militare hotărăşte tu dacă le iei sau nu acasă. Nu anunţa rudele mele, iar la înmormântare, dintre judecători, colegi de serviciu de la tribunalele militare să nu participe nimeni. Este dorinţa mea. Te vor ajuta Voinea, Nistor şi Răzvan pe care să-i rogi din partea mea. Pe cruce să fie trecute numai iniţiale. V-am iubit şi vă iubesc dincolo de moarte. Adio P. GIGA Problemele băneşti trebuie să te zbaţi să le rezolvi.
În fişet ţi-am lăsat un plic cu 10.425 lei.
Cheile de la fişet sînt în buzunar. Pe plic
Soţiei mele (scumpă şi nefericită) Eleonora Popa POST-SCRIPTUM:
Scrisoarea către soţie se află în fişet la tribunal, compartimentul de sus, precum şi un plic cu bani.
Rog să i se dea imediat scrisoarea; cheile de la fişet sînt în buzunarul hainei.
Libertatea din 5 martie 1990 pag. 1-a https://www.amosnews.ro/remember-5-martie-1990-presa-acum-25-de-ani-2015-03-05 fear…
Către ziarul “Libertatea”
Domnule redactor şef,
În ziarul dv. din 5 martie a.c. aţi publicat scrisoarea generalului Gică Popa, adresată familiei!
Vă rugăm să anunţaţi opinia publică, pe această cale, că n-am consimţit niciodată Ia publicarea acestei scrisori.
Întrucît scrisoarea ne aparţinea numai nouă, soţie şi fiică, numai noi eram îndreptăţite să cerem publicarea acestei scrisori.
Cum noi n-am consimtit la aceasta, vă rugăm să investigaţi si să comunicaţi de asemenea opiniei publice, prin ce manevre s-a ajuns la publicarea ei.
Din informaţiile noastre, un rol nefast in acest sens avîndu-l actualul ministru al justiţiei Teofil Pop, care în mare parte poartă răspunderea morală pentru actul la care a fost împins generalul Gică Popa. Eleonora POPA
Sorela POPA
12 martie 1990
https://www.amosnews.ro/remember-13-martie-1990-presa-acum-25-de-ani-2015-03-13
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It is noteworthy that one of the most visible accounts of discussion of Gica Popa’s suicide remains Vladimir Tismaneanu and Matei Calinescu’s 1991 article in “Problems of Communism.” Tismaneanu has recently publicly reaffirmed that he doesn’t “respect” my “opinions about Romania” (kind of a broad brush no?). I leave it to the reader to compare the research above (and not only there) and conclusions based on attempting to assemble facts, with Tismaneanu’s claims, based on reading Le Monde in April 1990 and the disputed “findings” of French forensic experts based on viewing a videotape, and thereby deducing that Nicolae Ceausescu suffered a heart attack, Elena Ceausescu went into hysterics and was killed “gangland style,” and thus Gica Popa had to sentence two corpses (!), and thereby had committed “professional suicide” and racked by guilt and regret, took his own life…(note above, all of this is at variance with what Popa’s wife and daughter said in the wake of their father’s suicide). Who tries to build a case based on assembling facts then and who prefers to engage in speculation based on a superficial overview to which he never returns to examine in light of new information?
for an earlier review of the Tismaneanu and Calinescu article and claims, see my piece from 2005 please:
The Walls Come Tumbling Down… What is arguably still the best historical account of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Gale Stokes’ “The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1993),” repeats as fact a list of allegations regarding the trial of the Ceausescus that first were given publicity by Vladimir Tismaneanu and Matei Calinescu. (Even where Stokes cites others, those articles are usually themselves derivative and their arguments can be traced back to Tismaneanu and Calinescu). Based in large part on the broadcast of the full tape of the Ceausescus’ trial and execution in April 1990, analyses in the French press, and the allegations of French forensic experts (which apparently derived solely from having watched the tape (!)), Tismaneanu and Calinescu clearly showed their preference in a 1991 article for the French theory of the events. They therefore write that the trial of the Ceausescus lasted nine hours but only “fifty-odd minutes” was shown on the tape, that the execution of the couple had been faked, since Nicolae had likely suffered a heart-attack—“during the trial or during a separate interrogation, possibly under torture”—that caused Elena to go into hysterics, which necessitated that she be killed on the spot “gangland style.” (Stokes, 1993, pp. 292-293, n.118; Calinescu and Tismaneanu, 1991, p. 45-46, especially n. 14). They then go on to speculate that the 1 March 1990 suicide of the chief judge of the trial, General Gica Popa, “could have been an act of desperation by an essentially honest man” who would have had to go through “the criminal charade” of sentencing two corpses to death. Of course, all of these judgments—and I contend this is the cornerstone of so many accounts/theories of the Revolution, although many researchers do not appear to acknowledge or realize it—are premised on their understanding of the identity and intentions of the “terrorists.” For example, if one believes there was no real “terrorist” threat, then one can countenance a leisurely nine-hour trial and the idea that the Ceausescus died during a “separate interrogation, possibly under torture.” On this question, Tismaneanu and Calinescu clearly reject the idea that those firing were fighting to topple the new leadership and restore the Ceausescus to power: “In retrospect, the purpose of the reports of terrorism appears to have been to create apprehension among the populace and induce people to forgo further public demonstration against communism. It was used, in effect, to help the new power structure.” (Calinescu and Tismaneanu, 1991, p. 45, n. 12) As to the allegations made by Calinescu and Tismaneanu in their 1991 account: even at the time of their article, there were very strong reasons to question the validity of their information and speculation. Numerous testimonies by Army personnel present at Tirgoviste while the Ceausescus were there negate their claims (see, for example, the interviews in “Ceausestii la Tirgoviste,” “Flacara,” 19 December 1990, pp. 8-10, which place the length of the trial anywhere between 50 minutes and one hour). As I wrote in 1997: “…even a year after the events, one of the eyewitnesses to what transpired, Maria Stefan, the cook in the officer’s mess, continued to maintain that the trial itself lasted ‘an hour’ (Hall, 1997, p. 342). When it comes to the question of Nicolae having been tortured prior to his death, Ratesh in 1991 notably stated that this version was “attributed to an official of the Romanian Ministry of the Interior”—i.e. likely former Securitate, and indeed given its utility for them it is not surprising that the former Securitate have sought to promote this idea in their literature on the Revolution (Ratesh, 1991, p. 76). Military and civilian personnel present at the execution are simply dismissive at the contentions of the French forensic experts that the Ceausescus were already dead by the time they were executed (they have effective counter-arguments regarding bloodflow—Nicolae’s greatcoat, Elena’s hysterical reaction by that point). They consider it ridiculous and the product of Westerners with no knowledge of the events (this comes through again on several occasions in the year long set of interviews in “Jurnalul National” during 2004).
https://atomic-temporary-3899751.wpcomstaging.com/2010/09/24/the-1989-romanian-revolution-as-geopolitical-parlor-game-brandstatter%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9ccheckmate%e2%80%9d-documentary-and-the-latest-wave-in-a-sea-of-revisionism-part-four/
The Archive of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 