HOW BUDKEVITCH DIED

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 82, 6 April 1923, Page 7

HOW BUDKEVITCH DIED

SHOT IN CELLAR OF "CHEKA"

SOVIET PRESS AND FOREIGN

APPEALS.

(»NITIB PM6S ASSOCIATION.—COPTMOK.)

(REUTERS TELEQRAH.) (Received 6th April, 10 a.m.)

WARSAW, sth April,

It transpires that Budkevitch was executed at 4 o'clock on Friday morning. News was delayed by the Soviet suspending telegraphic communication for four days.

The sentence was carried ont in the cellar of the "Cheka" building. The priest was placed back to the executioner, who fired a revolver at the back of his head.

The Soviet newspapers sarcastically comment on foreign intervention. The "Izvestia" furiously attacks "perfidious Engiand," the "murderer of a hundred thousand Irishmen." The "Pravda" exhorts Italian Communists to sentence the Pope to death by default pending the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal.

The "Cheka" is the dread Soviet orgamsation which deals with alleged counter-revolutionary movements. Its executions number hundreds of thousands, and it is practically all-powerful in Russia, ruling with a reign of terror. The execution by revolver in a cellar is the regular method. Monsignor Budkevitch was charged with Archbishop Zepliak and several other priests of the Roman Catholic Church of Russia on three charges—(l) Opposing a decree separating Cnurch and State; (2) opposing the requisition of Church treasures ; (3) organising an agitation designed to close the Churches with the object of embarrassing the Soviet's relations with the Vatican. The archbishop and one priest, Budkevitch, were sentenced to death. Fifteen priest 3 were sentenced to imprisonment for terms ranging from ten to three years. The sentence on the archbishop was commuted to solitary confinement for ten years.