Bucharest, Romania: A Romanian appeals court on Wednesday upheld a 20-year prison sentence for a 90-year-old communist-era prison guard convicted of crimes against humanity, in the first such case since dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was tried and executed in 1989.

Alexandru Visinescu was convicted in July for the deaths at the Ramnicu Sarat prison in eastern Romania during his command from 1956 to 1963. The High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest took up the case after Visinescu appealed.

He was not present in court on Wednesday to hear the verdict and there was no immediate reaction from him.

In the past, he showed no remorse and insisted he was only following orders. At his final hearing last month, Visinescu wept and pleaded: “Let me die!”

He was asked six times by the judge and prosecutor why inmates died under his command. He answered just once, suggesting they died of old age.

Wednesday’s ruling is a watershed moment in Romania’s attempts to bring to communist-era wrongdoers to justice, 27 years after the collapse of one of the most repressive regimes in the former Soviet Bloc. Aside from Ceausescu, none of the other communist-era figures allegedly responsible for crimes against humanity have faced trial, a failure that has been blamed on corruption that has flourished even despite Romania’s membership in the European Union.

The trial itself reflects a commitment by a new generation of prosecutors to clean up the endemic corruption.

Andrei Muraru, who initiated the case in 2013 when he was head of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes, said he was deeply gratified by the ruling.

“It is a historic sentence because starting from this moment, any crimes committed in the communist era can be condemned,” he said.

“It is an important ruling for the rehabilitation of the victims,” he added.

The prison that Visinescu ran housed people who had been members of the intellectual, political and military elite in Romania before the Second World War.

All were held in solitary confinement and could communicate with each other only by Morse code. Prosecutors said former prisoners testified that they were denied access to medical treatment, heating, exercise and adequate food. Beatings were common. Nearly 140 inmates were incarcerated during the seven years Visinescu was in command.