The trial took place on December 25, 1989, and lasted only a few hours. In practice, the couple only heard the accusations and the death sentence, without being able to appeal to a higher court. To proceed with the sentence, all the soldiers volunteered to be the executioner.

Television then recorded the moment when Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were executed, becoming the bodies of the once most powerful couple in Romania.

Before all the pro-Ceausescu individuals were caught and killed, they managed to reach various bicycles and cultural domains and destroyed numerous books and documents as an obsessive attempt to somehow erase the past.

A total of 1,104 people died in Romania during the events of December 1989, 162 before Ceausescu's fall, who had ordered the repression of the protesters, and 942 in the following days, according to a development that remains unclear even after years.

In 2018, Romanian parliamentarians attempted to launch legal actions against Ion Iliescu and former Prime Minister Petre Roman for their responsibility in the bloody days following the anti-communist uprising of December 1989.

The summary of the anti-communist uprising, which had been archived in 2015 mainly due to prescription or lack of evidence, was reopened in 2016 by decision of the High Court of Cassation. They alleged that "To preserve power," the new leaders would have, according to the prosecution, implemented a "plan" and caused "death, gunshot wounds, physical and mental harm, and the detention of a large number of people."