Romanian military prosecutors announced on Friday the initiation of the prosecution against former president Ion Iliescu for "committing crimes against humanity" in the 1989 "revolution" case.

The investigations aimed to establish "the factual situation regarding the direct exercise of the prerogatives of the state power" by the National Salvation Front Council (CFSN), the structure which took over de facto power in the country immediately after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu on Dec. 22, 1989.

"Investigations are concerned with whether the establishment of a generalized terrorism psychosis would have created numerous fratricidal fires, chaotic shootings, contradictory military orders, etc," according to prosecutors.

The terrorist psychosis would have been deliberately induced by diversion and disinformation and caused, after Dec. 22, 1989, as many as 862 deaths, 2,150 injuries. These tragic consequences were "far worse" than those of the repression exercised between Dec. 17 and 22, 1989, before the fall of the Ceausescu regime, said the prosecutors.

Iliescu is accused of accepting and making official military measures, "some of which had an obvious diversionist character." Prosecutors said that he had the power to stop these measures, but he failed to do it.

Alongside Iliescu, prosecutors also indicted three other CFSN figures, a former deputy prime minister and two senior military officers, for the same crimes.

Iliescu, now 88, served as president from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004.