BUCHAREST: 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 high-profile case since dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was tried and executed in 1989.

Alexandru Visinescu was convicted in July for the abuse and killing of prisoners at the Ramnicu Sarat prison in eastern Romania during his command from 1956 to 1963.

Visinescu appealed to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, but was not present in court on Wednesday to hear the verdict. Police were expected to go to his Bucharest apartment later Wednesday to take him to prison.

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

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.

During the trial 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.

Valentin Cristea, 85, the only surviving prisoner from Ramnicu Sarat under Visinescu's command, heard about the verdict at his home north of Bucharest. Reached by phone, he told The Associated Press: "The justice system did its duty."

Cristea, who spent seven years in the prison under Visinescu, said he was too ill to discuss the matter further. But he added that he was indifferent to Visinescu, saying he would pay for "his sins in a future life."

Wednesday's ruling is a watershed 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, almost none of the other top communist-era figures 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 stamp out corruption.

Though Visinescu was not a high-level leader, he became a symbol of the system's brutality.

Andrei Muraru, who initiated the case in 2013 when he was head of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes, told The Associated Press that 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," Muraru said.

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