NOTORIETY

udor Postelnicu, a Romanian politician who headed the country’s secret police and suppressed dissent as a top aide of former leader Nicolae Ceausescu, has died, his wife said Sunday. He was 86.

Maria Postelnicu said her husband died on Saturday, weeks after he was admitted to a military hospital in the Romanian capital with breathing problems.

Postelnicu joined the youth wing of the Communist Party in 1945 after the party was legalised and rose within its ranks. In 1978, he was appointed to head the feared Securitate secret police, a position

He was sentenced to prison in 1990, serving four years for aggravated murder before being released on health grounds