[1] The trial was conducted by an Extraordinary Military Tribunal, a drumhead court-martial created at the request of a newly formed group called the National Salvation Front.

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.

[7] 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.

[7] Victor Stănculescu, who was Ceaușescu's last defence minister before going over to the revolution, wanted a quick execution, as did Gelu Voican Voiculescu.

[13] The charges were published in Monitorul Oficial the day after the execution:[14] The morning of the trial, prominent lawyer Nicu Teodorescu was having Christmas breakfast with his family when he was telephoned by an aide to Iliescu, and asked by the National Salvation Front to be the Ceaușescus' defence counsel.

[clarification needed] Various irregularities presented themselves, or became apparent after the trial:[19][20] The Ceaușescus were executed at 2:50 p.m. local time at Military Unit UM 01417 from Târgoviște on 25 December 1989.

[1] The execution was carried out by a firing squad consisting of eight paratroop regiment soldiers brought in by two helicopters from the Boteni base: Captain Ionel Boeru, Sergeant-Major Georghin Octavian and Dorin-Marian Cîrlan, and five other non-commissioned officers who were selected from 20 volunteers.

The execution happened too quickly for the television crew assigned to the trial and death sentence to videotape it in full; only the last round of shots was filmed.

[28] In 1989, Prime Minister Petre Roman told French television that the execution was carried out quickly due to rumours that loyalists would attempt to rescue the couple.

[35] Groups of Ceaușescu supporters visit to place flowers on the grave, with large numbers of pensioners gathering on 26 January, Nicolae's birthday.

[36] The hasty trial and the images of the dead Ceaușescus were videotaped and the footage promptly released in numerous Western countries two days after the execution.

[37] In 2009 Valentin Ceaușescu, elder son of the Ceaușescus, argued that the revolutionary forces should have killed his parents when they had arrested them on 22 December since they did not need any trial.

[42] Swiss theatre director Milo Rau and his International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM) wrote and produced the stage production The Last Days of the Ceausescus in 2009.

[44] The show then premiered at Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in Berlin, before touring Switzerland at the Schlachthaus Theater in Bern, Theaterhaus Gessnerallee in Zurich, and Südpol in Lucerne.