Historian Vasile Lechințan
Last Thursday I posted on my blog, exclusively, the resolution signed by Valeriu Crudu Irinel, prosecutor at the Prosecutor’s Office in Gheorgheni, Harghita county, dictated by him in the criminal case No. 207/P/2013 in which Arus Zsolt István (member of the Hungarian Civic Party) and Zoltan Lorant Kemenes were accused of committing the offense of promoting the cult of persons guilty of crimes against peace and humanity, according to art. 5 of O.U.G. No. 31/2002, for having promoted the cult of war criminal Wass Albert.
The prosecutor from Gheorgheni absolved the two promoters on the reason that the acts committed by Wass Albert, for which he was sentenced to death, would not fall under the O.U.G. No. 31/2002 (the Romanian law that bans the cult of persons convicted for crimes against peace and humanity). Personally, I have expressed my opinion concerning the resolution signed by Mr. Crudu Irinel-Valeriu. The resolution is one of the most disgusting and vile Romanian resolutions signed by a magistrate that I have ever seen.
Concerning the subject of Wass Albert I asked historian Vasile Lechinţan from Cluj-Napoca to share with me his point of view on this matter. He was kind enough to clarify things regarding this case.
Dan Tanasă: Mr. Vasile Lechinţan, I know that in 1993 you fully published in a science journal, the Sentence no. 1 of People’s Court of Law in Cluj-Napoca in the trial of war criminals from Ip, Treznea, Huedin, Mureșenii de Câmpie and other cities in Transylvania. We now have a resolution signed by a Romanian prosecutor that challenges the fact that Wass Albert would fall within the provisions of O.U.G. No. 31/2002 and absolves people who propagate the cult of personality of the war criminal Wass Albert. What do you think?
Vasile Lechinţan: Indeed, in 1993 I published the whole criminal sentence of the People’s Court of Law in Cluj-Napoca, dated 13th of March 1946, in “Acta Musei Porolissensis” magazine. The Criminal Court in Cluj-Napoca, in which there was also present a representative of Hungarian ethnicity, namely Belovay Ștefan from the Communist Party, judged and sentenced to death, in absentia, Wass Albert, declaring him “guilty of the country’s disaster by committing the crime of war”.
Dan Tanasă: And if Wass was convicted of war crimes how come a Romanian prosecutor decides that what Albert Wass did does not fall under O.U.G. No. 31/2002?
Vasile Lechinţan: Dear Mr. Dan Tanasă, Albert Wass is clearly among those guilty of crimes against peace and humanity, since he was declared a war criminal, he was not tried and convicted for a crime done in a pub, but, during war time, he involved the Hungarian army, stationed in the area, to commit the terrible atrocities from Sucutard and Mureșenii de Câmpie, in which children, women and elderly people have fallen victim, and is guilty of promoting xenophobic ideology because the Criminal Court in Cluj-Napoca has made it clear that Albert Wass and his family “were hating Romanians”. And this was happening in a time of war, when any denunciation to the Hungarian army of occupation meant immediate death sentence and execution, as happened in Ip and Trăznea.
Dan Tanasă: So, considering this, what could be the implications of the resolution signed by the prosecutor from Gheorgheni?
Vasile Lechinţan: Mr. Tanasă, first it will have international connotations. Let’s see how the Jew community will react, because two innocent Jew women were executed in Sucutard following the instigation of Albert Wass. Last year a researcher from Budapest came to me. He was concerned by the Albert Wass case and the pressures of some Hungarian circles to rehabilitate the war criminal convicted in 1946. It hurts us to see that the Romanian justice system will now enter into international public attention and of course it hurts us that the memory of those innocent children and of all the others, Romanians and Jews, who were killed in the massacres from Sucutard and Mureșenii de Câmpie is deeply aggrieved for having created a precedent as a war criminal can now be worshiped by Hungarian extremists in Romania without any embarrassment and an example of hatred and anti-Romanian xenophobia can now be worshiped as a hero right on Romanian territory.
The resolution of the Romanian prosecutor can be found here (in Romanian).
Tags: Budapest, Cluj Napoca, Crudu Irinel-Valeriu, Gheorgheni, Ip, Mureşenii de Câmpie, Vasile Lechințan, Wass Albert
Trebuie făcută și asta: dacă suntem atât de (de)căzuți, trebuie să se știe. Articolul ar trebui trimis presei israeliene.
Am trimis la The Jerusalim Post.