Romanian court hands ex-prison chief 20 years for 103 deaths

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, file picture, Ion Ficior, former commander of a communist labor camp, touches his forehead after leaving the general prosecutors office, in Bucharest, Romania. A Romanian court has sentenced Ficior, 87 years-old, Wednesday, March 30, 2016, to 20 years in prison, for the deaths of 103 political prisoners who perished while he was commander of the Periprava labor camp from 1958 to 1963. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 file picture, Ion Ficior, former commander of a communist labor camp, waits for registration at the general prosecutors office in Bucharest, Romania. A Romanian court has sentenced Ficior, 87 years-old, Wednesday, March 30, 2016, to 20 years in prison, for the deaths of 103 political prisoners who perished while he was commander of the Periprava labor camp from 1958 to 1963. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File) (The Associated Press)

BUCHAREST, Romania – A Romanian court has sentenced a former prison commander to 20 years in prison for the deaths of 103 political prisoners while he was commander of a communist-era labor camp.

The Bucharest court on Wednesday handed the sentence to Ion Ficior, 87, who was commander at the Periprava labor camp from 1958 to 1963. He has 10 days to appeal.

Former detainees accused Ficior of beatings, a lack of food and medicine, and unheated cells. He denies wrongdoing and says he was merely following orders.

Last month, in the first case of its kind in Romania, a court upheld a 20-year sentence against another former commander, Alexandru Visinescu, for the abuse and deaths of prisoners at the Ramnicu Sarat prison, which he ran from 1956 to 1963.