THE NEW TURKEY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 302, 15 September 1908, Page 7

THE NEW TURKEY.

GOVERNMENT ON TRIAL. Weakness towards bricandace. SANDANSKY'S IMMUNITY. (BY TM.EOBAFH—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COrYKIOUT.) ' Constantinople, September 11. The immunity of Panitza, and other of Sandanski's associates in recent murders, is causing anxiety to the friends of Turkey. Tho Government is accused of favouritism towards Sandansky, who continues to levy tributo from the peasantry in the Drama and Serres districts. STORY OF THE MURDERER'S ESCAPE. . SANDANSKY'S MAFIA. Boris Sarafoff, a well-known Bulgarian leader of tho revolutionary movoment in Macedonia, and his comrade in arms Ivan Garvanoff, were murdered at Sofia last December by Panitza, a tool of the brigand Sandansky, the captor of Miss Stone. Sarafoff was at one time an officer in the Bulgarian army. The assassin fled across the Macedonian frontier; and the new Turkish Government is, it would seem, afraid- to interfere with him and his powerful protector. Sandansky, it seems, was strongly opposed to any interference by the Sofia committee with tho movement in Macedonia. The vindictive jealousy of the Bulgarian leaders is notorious, and Sandansky used the assassin Panitza to remove two rivals. Sandansky controls an extensive secret society, or mafia, with a secret police and postal service, which imposes a tribute on the villages on either side of the frontier. By the aid of tho mafia, Panitza, on night of the murder, was able to leave Sofia in a carriage, which he abandoned four miles from the city, traversing the mountains on foot. After lying concealed for some days he made his way to the village of Lidjene, near the Macedonian frontier, where the local schoolmaster George Vasilieff, a member of Sandansky's organisation,' sheltered him. On December 19 Panitza, with dyed hair and beard, t guided by a man named Nikoloff, whom Vasilieff had supplied escaped into Macedonia, arrived at the villago of Eleshnitza, and thence reached Sandanskyfs camp. But behind, himj in Bulgaria, Nemesis overtook the guide and the schoolmaster. Having incurred the suspicion of the authorities, Vasilieff removed from Lidjene, and when the guide Nikoloff returned with a letter announcing Panitza's' safe arrival there was no Vasilieff to deliver it to. Tho guide, therefore, delivered the letter to a person who, he believed,, was one of Sandansky's confederates, but who turned 'out to be a friend of the murdered Sarafoff. This led to tho arrest of both Nikoloff and .Vasilieff. But while in gaol at Sofia the schoolmaster contrived by a ruse to distract the attention of the gendarme who was guarding .him, and shot himself with tho gendarme's revolver, which was hanging on the wall of the cell. The methods adopted by Sandansk.vs organisation in connection' with Panitza's escape were of a thorough-going character. Two days before his departure from 'Lidjene, four woodcutters, who were working near tho path, to Eleshnitza, were murdered in order that his passage by this route might remain concealed.