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,
Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu the cameraman, still filming, was seen walking towards the couple's bodies. Elena had fallen to her right while Nicolae had collapsed where he was. A soldier and a medical doctor then began to approach the bodies to confirm that the Ceaușescus had in fact been successfully executed. The cameraman requested that her blood soaked scarf which had fallen across Elena's head be lifted so her face could be clearly filmed. Similarly, while the doctor was confirming Nicolae Ceaușescu's death he was asked to lift up his head for the camera as well. In 1989, Prime Minister Petre Roman told French