Ion Iliescu, Romania’s first freely elected president after Communism, helped bring down the country’s dictatorship and led ...

Ion Iliescu, Romania’s first freely elected president after the fall of communism in 1989, who later faced charges of crimes ...

On the day of Ion Iliescu’s funeral, the polarizing legacy of Romania’s first elected president after the fall of communism ...

The casket carrying the body of Ion Iliescu, Romania’s first elected president after the bloody fall of communism in 1989, ...

Ion Iliescu was born on March 3, 1930, one of four brothers, in Oltenita, a town of 10,000 on the Danube, south of Bucharest. His father, Alexandru, was a locomotive mechanic who joined the ...

Initially hailed as the man who would lead Romania into a new democratic era, Iliescu's legacy soon became more complicated.

Ion Iliescu, Romania's first leader after the collapse of the Ceausescu dictatorship, died at 95. He saw himself as a savior, ...

Iliescu had been admitted to hospital with lung cancer roughly two months ago. "History will judge Ion Iliescu, the main ...

As president, he steered the country through its transition to democracy. He was later accused of crimes against humanity.

But Iliescu was also the one who got all political parties to agree to support Romania's path to EU and NATO membership. It joined the NATO alliance in 2004 and the EU in 2007.

Iliescu, who held de facto military authority during the anticommunist revolt, assumed power after Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and his wife Elena, were executed on Dec. 25, 1989.