Grapevine

By PAUL GRAY/

LAST EXITS IN ROMANIA. The grainy videotape of last December's trial and execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife never shows the couple actually being cut down by bullets. This gap is now suspected of hiding a grisly interlude. Quoting government sources in Bucharest, a French newspaper claims that Ceausescu was tortured to death following the tribunal, by Romanian soldiers who were trying to locate three briefcases containing numbers and access codes of the family's foreign bank accounts. After studying the photographic evidence, forensic experts at France's Carme Institute tentatively confirm this scenario. They note the lack of bullet entry marks on Ceausescu's torso, the small amount of blood on his body (suggesting that any gunshots he received came after his death) and lesions on his face resembling those suffered by victims of beatings.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS