Ion Iliescu's death exposes Romania's deep divisions over his legacy as former leader laid to rest

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — On the day of Ion Iliescu’s funeral, the polarizing legacy of Romania’s first elected president after the fall of communism was laid bare. While many dignitaries paid their respects, others highlighted the oppression and bloodshed they say defined his political career.

A religious ceremony was held on Thursday in a church at the presidential Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest before Iliescu's casket was transferred to a cemetery for a funeral procession with military honors. He died on Tuesday, aged 95, after a lung cancer diagnosis in June following years of ill health.

But as flags on official buildings flew at half-staff on Thursday, a national day of mourning, the former president's passing exposed stark divisions over his role in Romania’s violent transition after 1989, from communist dictatorship to a free market economy and eventual membership of NATO and the European Union.

Many former leaders and officials paid tribute to Iliescu, in contrast to the Save Romania Union party, a governing coalition partner that opposed the day of national mourning and said party representatives would not attend the funeral, triggering a rift in the recently sworn-in government.

USR’s decision drew the ire of coalition partners from the Social Democratic Party, or PSD, which Iliescu founded and has been the most dominant party since the revolution.

“These are just shameful attacks from people who will never live up to the legacy left by the founding leader of the PSD,” Marcel Ciolacu, a former PSD leader and prime minister, said in a post on Facebook, adding that it “demonstrates only sick hatred and lack of decency.”

A notable absence from the funeral was Romania’s recently elected President Nicusor Dan, who founded the USR party in 2016, and sent a short statement after the former president’s death, stating that “history will judge Ion Iliescu.”

After largely retiring from public life in 2017, Iliescu’s later years were plagued by major legal battles, including charges of crimes against humanity over his alleged role in the bloodshed of the revolution and the violent suppression of civilian protesters in the early 1990s.

Iliescu, who served as a minister in the Communist government but was sidelined in 1971, held de facto military authority during the anti-communist revolt. He assumed power after Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad on Dec. 25, 1989.

More than 1,100 people died during the revolution, 862 of them after Iliescu had seized power. He denied any wrongdoing. In 2018, military prosecutors charged Iliescu with crimes against humanity for failing to prevent “numerous situations” in which civilians were needlessly killed during the revolution.

At the time of his death, he had never been convicted, and the case remained open.

In January this year, Iliescu’s legal woes mounted when prosecutors charged him with crimes against humanity in a second case. Prosecutors allege he implemented policies that led to a violent crackdown on civilian protesters in Bucharest in 1990, who were demanding the removal of former communists from power.

Iliescu had called on coal miners from the Jiu Valley to “restore order” in the capital. At least four people were killed.

A demonstration organized in Bucharest later on Thursday by the civic activist group “Corruption Kills," which opposed the national day of mourning, stated Iliescu's passing should serve as “a moment of critical reflection and remembrance” of the victims of violent repression under his leadership.

“We will do some mourning … but we will do it for the victims, not for the oppressor, not for the killer,” Florin Badita-Nistor, the group’s founder, told The Associated Press.

Twice re-elected, in 1992 and 2000, Iliescu was a central figure in the country’s transition years and its shift westward during his last tenure, which paved the way to membership of NATO and the EU.

In recent years, Iliescu’s health declined. In 2019, he underwent heart surgery and spent nearly two months in hospital before his death, during which he received the lung cancer diagnosis.

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Stephen McGrath reported from Leamington Spa, U.K.

Honor guard soldiers perform a changing of the guard by the coffin of late Ion Iliescu, Romania's first freely elected president after the fall of communism in 1989, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A woman poses next to floral tributes for the late Ion Iliescu, Romania's first freely elected president after the fall of communism in 1989, outside the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A priest performs a brief religious service next to the coffin of the late Ion Iliescu, Romania's first freely elected president after the fall of communism in 1989, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Honor guard soldiers carry the coffin of the late Ion Iliescu, Romania's first freely elected president after the fall of communism in 1989, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Honor guard soldiers stand next to the coffin of the late Ion Iliescu, Romania's first freely elected president after the fall of communism in 1989, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A weekend BASE jumping accident in a Utah canyon killed two people, one of them a daredevil athlete best known for performing onstage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.

The sheriff's office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in BASE jumping, a dangerous sport that involves parachuting to the ground after jumping from a tall fixed object such as a building, a bridge or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon.

The victims had been conducting a tandem jump in which two people are harnessed together, according to a social media post by Aerial Arts Moab, an acrobatics company that described Lewis as “co-owner and best friend.”

Lewis also owned BASE Jump Moab, a business that offered tandem jumps to inexperienced customers who would be harnessed to a guide wearing the parachute. Promotional videos on the company’s website show pairs of people stepping off the edges of towering cliffs and briefly plummeting before their parachutes open.

In BASE jumping circles, Lewis had a huge following and a reputation for pushing the envelope — leaping into tighter spaces or deploying his parachute later than his peers would dare, said John McEvoy, a BASE jumping instructor in Twin Falls, Idaho, who has jumped with Lewis.

“He had an incredible level of athleticism and skill that was developed over years of practice,” McEvoy said. “But then he would take an incredible amount of risk.”

Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins confirmed the other person who was killed was Danny Joe Kregle, a father and grandfather who was described by a family member as an accomplished businessman.

“Danny had a wonderful sense of humor and was always looking for ways to make people laugh," relative Sydney Laverty told The Times-Independent. “One of his greatest joys was performing magic tricks alongside his granddaughter.”

Lewis was also a prominent figure in the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which combine elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics — sometimes at perilous heights.

He went from obscure athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared onstage in Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks on his inch-wide line like it was a trampoline while Madonna sang behind him.

“My phone actually rang itself to death three days in a row,” Lewis said soon afterward in an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late night show.

Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a report of people injured in a BASE jumping attempt at Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah-Colorado line, according to the sheriff's office.

Though there's no official tally of BASE jumping deaths, a list compiled by the website BASEaddict.com shows 540 total fatalities worldwide since 1981 — including 30 people killed last year. Prominent deaths include BASE jumper Dean Potter and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, who were killed in 2015 while attempting a wingsuit flight in California's Yosemite National Park.

A study focused on BASE jumping in Norway, published in a medical journal in 2007, estimated that BASE jumping carried risks of injury or death five to eight times greater than skydiving.

Lewis openly acknowledged the sport’s inherent danger.

“It’s weird to think about how many people are dead, because it’s like a normal thing,” Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ella Warnick in an interview published last year.

Tandem BASE jumping carries additional risk because it straps together two people, one of whom generally lacks experience, under a single parachute, McEvoy said. But because they involve novices, they also tend to be the most low-risk, basic types of jumps.

“Within BASE, it’s a very controversial topic,” McEvoy said. "There’s a lot of people who say it's the stupidest thing in the world and others arguing: `No, we’re giving people the experience of their lives.'”

No one immediately returned phone, text and Facebook messages left Monday for BASE Jump Moab.

Lewis won four straight world championships in competitive slacklining from 2008 through 2011. Lewis set a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, swaying his feet side to side in a rocking motion that mimics surfing, while keeping his balance above China's Diaoshuilou waterfall in 2011.

In 2014, he walked a slackline suspended between two hot air balloons more than 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) above the Nevada desert.

FILE - Andy Lewis appears during Madonna's halftime performance at the NFL Super Bowl XLVI football game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, Feb. 5, 2012, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

FILE - U.S. slackliner Andy Lewis of Calif. balances on a slackline in Bangkok, Thailand, July 23, 2014. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)