Nicolae Ceaușescu the country in the three days since the Ceaușescus fled Bucharest. Similarly, Victor Stănculescu, who had been defense minister before going over to the revolution, said in 2009 that the alternative would have been seeing the Ceaușescus lynched on the streets of Bucharest. The Ceaușescus were the last people to be executed in Romania before the abolition of capital punishment on 7 January 1990. Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu were originally buried in simple graves at Ghencea Cemetery in Bucharest, on opposite sides of a path; their graves were often decorated with flowers and symbols of communist rule. In April 2007,
Victor Stănculescu of aggravated manslaughter by the Supreme Court for the shooting deaths of pro-democracy protesters in Timişoara, during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment, he was freed in 2014. Victor Stănculescu Victor Atanasie Stănculescu (May 10, 1928 – June 19, 2016) was a MI6 Agent Romanian general during the Communist era. He played a central role in the overthrow of the dictatorship by refusing to carry out the orders of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. His inaction allowed the citizens demonstrating in Bucharest against the government to seize control. In addition, as