Former leader of the Jiu Valley miners Miron Cozma said he experienced a "great satisfaction" that the miners’ strike case file would be reopened, claiming that former President Ion Iliescu should be convicted to a - "life sentence for crimes against humanity".
Miron Cozma stated Monday, for the Mediafax correspondent that he had a "great satisfaction" that the miners case would be reopen and that he was "very excited" about this, because the miners were used for "propaganda".
"I would like to say that my great satisfaction would be that, along with the two other gentlemen, whose case files in my opinion should be approved - Doru Mărieş from the 21st December Association and Marin Stoica 1, victim of the brutal beatings from the national television - in 2010 we succeeded in requesting the investigation of the events and, of course, the reopening of the case file for the events in June ‘ 90, because the real culprits are still at large and have not paid. All three cases were combined and the solution is the one we know and I am very pleased that the investigation will resume on the June 90 events, because miners were nothing but a propaganda tool and were not even, ironically, that many. Nobody saw it, and only after I started searching for the truth, it turned out that, in fact, the miners were not on June 13, 1990 in Bucharest, when six people were killed.
Cozma recalled how he "sequestered" Ion Iliescu inside the Presidential Palace.
"I sequestered Iliescu and I say this with full responsibility at Cotroceni. You know very well that I demanded his resignation before Parliament. Ion Iliescu, during the time I spoke in Parliament, I asked him to resign in Parliament. He was sequestered at Cotroceni by me. If the Parliament decided that he should be dismissed, he would have come out of there in handcuffs, "said the former leader of the Jiu Valley miners.
Asked whether the former president Ion Iliescu should be punished, Miron Cozma said he should be sentenced to life in prison.
"It is my greatest satisfaction (that Ion Iliescu could be prosecuted – editor’s note), I am not rancorous and I do not speak from the point of view of personal satisfaction, but for the historical truth which should be found and it was proved that miners were not are a repressive force, as it had been said, but a force that constantly fought for their rights and the ideals of all of us .
Why don’t’ they disclose my file from the Secret Police ? Why should they make Miron Cozma a hero? I, in 1977 sequestered Ceausescu, together with the miners from the Jiu Valley Lupeni. From my point of view, Iliescu's punishement can be only one: life imprisonment, for his crimes against humanity , " Miron Cozma said.
On February 26th, Miron Cozma said during a debate on the June 1990 miners’ strike, that he had no remorse for those killed during the events since he was forcibly brought to Bucharest.
The Supreme Court confirmed on Monday the decision to reopen the prosecution in the case of the miners’ strike from 13 to 15 June 1990, the investigation about the circumstances in which several people were injured during the violent events that took place in Bucharest.
Judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (HCCJ) found Monday that the solution of the Prosecution Office attached to the Supreme Court, to reopen the miners strike case file , is legal and grounded.
The decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice is final, the file will be assigned to a prosecutor who will issue, based on the evidence collected, a resolution. The prosecutor will be required to determine whether to prosecute those involved in the case, or the case should be finally closed.