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What the newspapers say: November 20, 2007

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With only several days to go to Romania’s first European elections, national newspapers on Tuesday describe the pros and cons of the many parties fighting for the country’s 35 seats in the European Parliament.

One paper reads about the confessions made by a member of ex-dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s secret police about the murder attempts against dissidents of the regime working at Radio Free Europe.

Another newspaper reads how the Italian press portraying a possible Al Qaeda member who lived in Romania. Also in the news, the head of the so-called associations Romanian political and Gypsy refugees in Italy talks about his criminal records before getting to Italy.

Cotidianul reports that Romanian authorities have no exact idea how many voters are expected to attend the November 25 elections for the European Parliament, the first such poll to be organized in Romania.

According to the paper, while the National Statistics Institute speaks of some 17 million voters, the Interior Ministry, which has a major role in organizing the elections, puts the number at about 18 million.

Evenimentul Zilei makes a thorough description of the candidates and parties taking part in the elections, arguing that the poll will have a last say on the existence of many a small political party in Romania.

For the big ones, however, the results will provide a strong view of their electoral support prior to the 2008 general elections back home.

Elsewhere in the papers today, Romania Libera reads about Radu Dochioiu, a.k.a Rudy Rusch, a maverick of ex-dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s secret services who is now revealing one of the most prominent operations of the dreaded Securitate ever organized in the West: an attempt to kill two dissidents working at Radio Free Europe.

Rusch talks about several attempts to kill dissidents Emil Georgescu and Victor Frunza, but also about the luxury fur coats traffic in the 70s and early 80s.

Rusch says that after his expulsion to Germany, he was contacted by Romanian undercover officers and blackmailed to cooperate in the murder of one Romanian dissident in Munich, Emil Georgescu.

Rusch eventually confessed everything to the American forces after which he received an American passport and their protection. Rudy says that his statements lead to the arrest of the murderers.

Elsewhere in the news, Gandul reports that Algerian Kamel Abbachi is a terrorist suspect who passed through Romania only to become infamous in Italy.

Abbachi is one of the alleged al-Qaeda operatives of whom Italian newspaper Il Secolo XIX reported recently to have lived and trained in Romania before leaving for Italy, revelations dismissed by the Romanian intelligence services as an old story.

According to the newspaper, Romanian authorities said the Algerian was not in their evidence but in fact he was. And the authorities also failed to keep him under supervision considering he had a criminal record, the paper claims.

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