Career
On 22 December 1989, Ceaușescu sacked him for not ordering his men to fire on the demonstrators who"d taken to the streets of Bucharest a day earlier. According to the official account, Ceaușescu considered this an act of treason, and Milea committed suicide shortly afterward. Milea was already in severe disfavour for sending troops to quell the uprising in Timișoara without ammunition.
Whatever the case, Milea"s death caused the rank-and-file soldiers to go over almost en masse to the revolution, effectively ending Communist rule in Romania.
A report from 2005 after a full investigation including a postmortem concludes that Milea killed himself using the weapon of one of his attendants. lieutenant seems that he only tried to get incapacitated in order to be relieved from office.
But the bullet hit an artery and he died soon afterwards.