Ursu's death was a matter of international scandal and, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the subject of an inquiry initially headed by prosecutor Dan Voinea [ro].
[9] Some of his writings ridiculed Communist and nationalist figures associated with Săptămâna magazine (among them Eugen Barbu, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, and Dan Ciachir [ro]).
[5] During this period, he was close to the filmmaker Mircea Săucan [ro], the composer Anatol Vieru, and the important writers Zaharia Stancu and Geo Bogza (a former Communist who was by then a critic of the regime).
[7] At the time, he had witnessed and recorded a meeting of the commission, attended and supervised by Ceaușescu, during which the dictator allegedly ordered all consolidation works to cease, supposedly claiming that they caused panic and could not hope to repair structural faults.
[7] According to Andrei Ursu, at a later stage his father also considered drafting a protest document which he intended to read inside the Great National Assembly, Communist Romania's formal legislative branch.
[11] Brătescu recounted that, during the trip, Ursu was avoiding discussions, but discreetly confessed his fears that the Securitate was using his notes to organize a round-up of his friends.
[3] Also present were G. Brătescu and theater critic Radu Albala, the latter of whom, doubting the official account, raised the possibility that Ursu had been killed by an inmate.
The lives of all these persons form a bridge supporting the moral values that risk being engulfed by the murky waters of an aberrant political regime of the kind Romanian communism was throughout its history.
"[1] In March 1990, after the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 toppled Ceaușescu, an inquiry was opened on the circumstances of his death, after a request was filed by Ursu's sister Georgeta Berdan.
[9] Andrei Ursu, who cited information presented by journalist Petre Mihai Băcanu [ro], indicated that the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) was keeping Prosecutor Voinea under close surveillance prior to his reassignment.
Political scientist Stejărel Olaru [ro] singled out the SRI as an obstacle in Voinea's way, arguing that this was owed to the survival of Securitate structures within its framework, and accusing the service of hampering access to the archives.
[17] In June 1996, Horia Andrei Ursu addressed an open letter to Romanian President Ion Iliescu, asking him to appoint an objective and willing prosecutor in the case.
[17] Writing in 1998, historian Vladimir Tismăneanu argued that the Ursu case tested "the very notion of a state of law and the trustworthiness of post-communist justice".
[18] In July 2003, former police colonels Tudor Stănică and Mihail Creangă were sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment each for having instigated the murder of Gheorghe Ursu.
[5][13][17] The two were found guilty of deliberately assigning Ursu to a cell where two recidivist and violent common criminals were serving time, and of having prevented their subordinates from intervening when the prisoner was being beaten.
[17] Their temporary flight and the Supreme Court's decision caused some consternation abroad: in September 2003, Finnish MEP Astrid Thors asked foreign embassies in Bucharest to closely monitor the case.
[17] Outside of the indictments related to the Revolution and pronounced in early 1990, the Ursu trial was the only case in which former Romanian officials were held accountable for a murder committed while in office.
[5] Romanian film director Paul Barbă Neagră, who was an acquaintance of Ursu, repeatedly claimed that the latter had actually been an important collaborator of the Communist regime, whose conflict with the authorities came as a result of personal dissatisfaction.
[21] Speaking during the same year, Ursu's son argued that Barbă Neagră's accusations were in effect marked by a conflict of ideas between his father and the filmmaker.
[5] Mircea Săucan also expressed disappointment in relation to Paul Barbă Neagră's allegations, and argued that they were equivalent to "a second killing" of Gheorghe Ursu.
[22] In summer 2007, in an interview with Cotidianul newspaper, Tudor Stănică alleged that Gheorghe Ursu was in fact a Securitate informant, whose mission involved reporting on the exiled dissidents and their activities.
[2] Their claim was dismissed by the CNSAS, who noted that it contradicted available data (and in particular the fact that Ursu's alleged patrons had eventually banned him from leaving Communist Romania).
[8] Upon reviewing the notes, journalists at Cotidianul concluded that the information they provided was mostly trivial, and that Ursu made efforts not to disclose any detail of the conversations he had with his friends.
[7][24] Directed by Cornel Mihalache and featuring recordings of Ursu's voice, it premiered in Sibiu during the events marking the city's selection as the year's European Capital of Culture.