BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romanian police said on Sunday they were investigating several people including a far-right leader of a party running in a parliamentary election for promoting a 1930s violent fascist leader on the anniversary of his death.
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was the pre-World War Two leader of the Iron Guard, one of Europe’s most violent antisemitic movements known for political assassinations, and dozens of people attended the 86th anniversary of his death on Saturday.
Ilfov county police near the capital Bucharest where the commemoration took place said it was investigating the case.
“The investigation aims to identify all the participants to the event, as well as establish what the context was and to take the required legal measures,” it said in a statement.
European MP Diana Sosoaca, leader of SOS Romania, a small ultra-nationalist Eurosceptic party posted a live video of her lighting candles at the scene of Codreanu’s death.
Responding to the investigation, Sosoaca said she was waiting for the prosecutor general to arrest her at her party headquarters and said threatening her with a criminal investigation on election day was proof of dictatorship.
“It is my business who I consider a patriot,” she told her followers.
Sosoaca is a pro-Russian, far-right politician who has praised Codreanu and Ion Antonescu, Romania’s de facto World War Two leader who was sentenced to death for his part in the Holocaust. A previous investigation against her for promoting them was closed.
Under Romanian legislation, promoting fascist leaders and Nazi, racist or xenophobic symbols is banned and carries a prison sentence, although cases rarely make it to court.
Romanians were voting in a parliamentary election on Sunday, in which the far right is expected to gain ground, the second of three consecutive ballots for both a new parliament and a new president. The Nov. 24 first round of the presidential election saw an independent far-right candidate become the unexpected front-runner.
Analysts said Sosoaca, who was banned by Romania’s top court from running for president will likely see her party enter the legislative alongside other hard-right groupings.
Romanian publication scena9.ro published photos of people who commemorated Codreanu showing them waving Iron Guard flags and performing the Nazi salute.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by David Evans)
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