BUCHAREST (Reuters) - The graves of Romania's former communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were dug up on Wednesday to check whether they were truly buried there, their son-in-law said.
Ceausescu ruled Romania from 1965 until he and Elena were captured and executed in 1989 after fleeing mass protests in Bucharest, marking the fall of communism in the southeast European country.
The execution took place at an army base near the town of Targoviste and the bodies were buried without fanfare, causing some to doubt whether the graves in Bucharest really contain their remains.
"The exhumation takes place today and we're taking samples of the remains," Mircea Opran, the husband of the Ceausescus' late daughter Zoia, told television station Realitatea. TV pictures showed the digging under way.
"The samples will be taken for tests and the rest will be buried," Opran said. "I don't know what will happen if it is discovered that the Ceausescus are not in these graves. Probably we will sue the Romanian state."
(Reporting by Sam Cage and Ioana Patran)
