Police later arrived at his home near the Gara de Nord railway station. They handcuffed and detained Ficior, who was dressed in a dark jacket, tie and dark felt hat — despite the warm weather— and escorted him to a car.
Ficior was commander at the Periprava labor camp from 1958 to 1963. During his trial, former detainees accused him of beatings, a lack of food and medicine, overwork and unheated cells.
Ion Radu, a witness at the trial and a prisoner at Periprava in the Danube Delta in eastern Romania for 12 years, welcomed the sentence. Radu was serving a sentence for belonging to an anti-communist organization.
"Too many people died there and it was considered normal," he told Digi24. "He totally deserves this punishment. He was left alone for too long. He was a cruel man."
In 2016, in the first case of its kind in Romania, a court sentenced another former commander, Alexandru Visinescu to 20 years, for the abuse and deaths of prisoners at the Ramnicu Sarat prison, which he ran from 1956 to 1963.
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