MR Nicu Ceausescu, the hard drinking playboy son of Romania's executed communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, has died in hospital in Vienna, succumbing to internal bleeding from acute liver disease.
Mr Ceausescu (45), who was flown to Vienna from Bucharest on last week, died early yesterday "from bleeding of the oesophagus as a result of liver cirrhosis and viral inflammation of the liver," according to Vienna General Hospital.
A womaniser and gambler who squandered vast sums at gaming tables across the world, Mr Ceausescu was being groomed as his father's successor before a violent revolution toppled the dictator in December 1989. Ceausescu and his wife Elena were shot by firing squad on Christmas Day.
Mr Ceausescu, youngest of the three Ceausescu children, indulged his appetite for excess involving women, drink and wild parties at his villa in central Bucharest. A reluctant member of his circle was the Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci. His playboy lifestyle - against a background of cruel poverty and shortages of food for most Romanians - symbolised the corruption of his father's rule.
Mr Ceausescu was head of the Communist Party's youth wing before taking over as local party boss in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in the 1980s. He was arrested shortly before his parent's execution and charged with ordering troops to fire on protesters in Sibiu during the uprising. He was jailed for 20 years in September 1990 but released on health grounds in November 1992.