DNA tests confirmed Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who ruled Romania from 1965 until he and his wife Elena were captured and shot by firing squad on Christmas Day in 1989 after fleeing mass protests in Bucharest,, was buried in a grave in Bucharest, forensic experts said on Wednesday, lifting doubt over the ruler's burial place.

Ceausescu's family had threatened to sue the Romanian state if the remains, exhumed on July 21, some 20 years after their deaths, had not belonged to the Ceausescus - ironically something Ceausescu would never have allowed when he was in power.