Военная коллегия Верховного суда СССР
Arrested on August 14, 1937, during the Stalinist purges, Nicolau was sentenced to death on September 27, 1937, by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on fabricated charges of "espionage and involvement in counter-revolutionary terrorist organisations". He was executed on the same day, and buried in the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow.