PATRIARCH JUSTINIAN, HIS COMMUNIST “COMRADES,” AND THE TRIAL OF COMMISSIONER SERGHIE IANDOLA, HEAD OF THE SECURITY POLICE OFFICE OF THE RÂMNICU VÂLCEA CITY POLICE

Often in life, encounters between different people become memorable and seem like scenes from destiny. One such encounter may have been that between priest Ioan Marina and police officer Serghie Iandola. Information about Commissioner Serghie Iandola and his relationships with politicians of the time came to light after he published details of a foiled assassination attempt on Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Vâlcea press in 1992, and then in studies and papers published on the subject. The new state apparatus, based on totalitarian principles, could not function without purging all the personnel who had worked in these institutions during Ion Antonescu's rule, which required a careful "selection" of all those who had to be removed from office, then brought to trial and sentenced to long prison terms. Some of them managed to escape the repression and suffering imposed by the new political regime by joining the resistance movement, while others were lucky enough to have someone to save them or to have a witness with strength and credibility in the eyes of the courts to intervene in their trial.