sentences:  He was married to Zina and had two children, Oana and Corneliu.Between 1969 and 1971, he was a founder of the clandestine National Patriotic Front of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, established by several young intellectuals in Chişinău, totaling over 100 members, vowing to fight for the establishment of a Moldovan Democratic Republic, its secession from the Soviet Union and union with Romania.In December 1971, following an informative note from Ion Stănescu, the President of the Council of State Security of the Romanian Socialist Republic, to Yuri Andropov, the chief of KGB, Gheorghe Ghimpu as well as Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgăr, Valeriu Graur, and Alexandru Şoltoianu were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.