Corneliu Vadim Tudor, born on November 28, 1949 and died September 14, 2015 from cardiovascular disease.

Corneliu was the leader of the Greater Romania Party (Partidul România Mare), poet, writer, journalist and a Member of the European Parliament.

He was a Romanian Senator from 1992 to 2008.

Corneliu began as a writer and poet and penned verses flattering Ceausescu.

After communism collapsed, he founded the nationalist Greater Romania Party and the Greater Romania weekly, a publication which in its heyday in the early 1990s had a circulation of hundreds of thousands.

He wrote disparaging articles about Jews, Hungarians, Roma and liberal-minded Romanians.

Corneliu was a lawmaker in the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014.

In a 2012 television interview, he denied the Holocaust took place in Romania.

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed in Romania and areas it controlled as an ally of Nazi Germany.

Romania only began to commemorate the Holocaust in 2004.

He surprisingly reached the runoffs of the 2000 presidential race, which he lost to Ion Iliescu, who was elected president for a third time.

Iliescu praised him as “a man of culture” who loved his country and said he should not be judged “superficially.”

Corneliu wrote more than one dozen books and was also known for his flamboyant style of dressing, wit, ready insults and love of stray dogs.

He was often cut off by television presenters because of his over-the-top remarks.

Corneliu was the only politician to say he believed that Romania had housed CIA secret prisons.

Corneliu Vadim Tudor died at age 65 on September 14, 2015.