WORLD : Free Ceausescu, Panel Urged
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SIBIU, Romania — A defense lawyer urged a military tribunal today to free Nicu Ceausescu, saying the son of the executed Romanian dictator was ill and the strain of his trial on genocide charges was “destroying him.”
The appeal by defense lawyer Paula Jakob came shortly before the five-judge panel declared a monthlong recess in the trial, which resumed Monday after a break of several weeks.
“All these hours spent under the glare of TV lights are destroying him,” Jakob said of Ceausescu, 39, who she says suffers from hepatitis and other disorders and may not survive his trial.
“Please, sir, give Nicu a shore to land on, some place where he can come to rest. His only shore is you,” Jakob said.
Ceausescu is accused of ordering security forces to open fire on demonstrators in the city of Sibiu during the December revolution that toppled his father’s hard-line government.
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