World IN BRIEF : ROMANIA : Genocide Trial of Dictator’s Son Opens

The youngest son of executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu insisted that he never ordered the army and police to shoot at demonstrators during the bloody revolution that toppled his father. “I kept asking the security forces not to shoot at demonstrators,” said Nicu Ceausescu, 39, as he testified on the first day of his nationally televised trial. He told the five-judge military court that the evidence did not support the chief charge against him, complicity in genocide. But he admitted to a lesser charge, illegal possession of firearms.