'A Travesty Of Justice’: The Petkov Execution

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 September 1947, Page 8

'A Travesty Of Justice’: The Petkov Execution

{ LONDON, September 24. ’ The United States State Department has issued a statement on the execution of Mr Petkov, leader of the Bulgarian Peasant Party, in which it says that the Bulgarian Government “in the court of world opinion has shown itself wanting in resptect for ,the elementary principles of justice ! and the rights of man.” I' The statement describes Mr Pet.kov’s trial on charges of plotting against the Government as “a travesty of justice” and adds: “The timing and conduct of the trial made it abundantly clear that the trial . constituted but one of a series of measures undertaken by tire Com-munist-dominated Fatherland Front Government to remove from the Bulgarian scene all save a purely nominal Opposition and to consolidate, in spite of its professions to the contrary, a totalitarian form of gov- ; eminent.” Former Trial Recalled Referring to the trial of the present Bulgarian Prime Minister (Mr Georgi Dimitrov) at the hands of Hitler for alleged complicity in the Reichstag fire, the State Department says: “The trial of Mr Petkov recalls to memory another. trial which occurred in Leipzig 14 years ago. In that earlier trial a Bulgarian defendant evoked world-wide admiration for his courageous defiance of a Nazi bully who participated in his prosecution. Today that defendant 'has assumed another role, and it is now another Bulgarian whose steadfast opposition to the forces of oppression has evoked world-wide admiration.” ' Under the heading, “A Hero Goes to the Gallows,” the New York Times says: “When a nation drapes itself in the robes of Justice to murder its foremost patriot, as Bulgaria did to hang Mr Petkov, it'not only commits a shameful crime. It makes a mistake. In the free world outside, it breeds horror and revulsion. Among its own people, it sows seeds of resentment which some day will yield a crop of bloodshed to drench the savage band that rules the land today. Hungary Next? “Mr Petkov was convicted long before he was tried. Several more of these murders are scheduled in Sofia. They will surely be committed. “Bulgaria has moved faster into the Russian darkness than Hungary, a more politically conscious and resistant country. But look for the next series of purge murders to start there.” . The Socialist group in tne Swiss National Council, in a communique describing Mr Petkov as “a Bulgarian democrat who opposed the Bulgarian . alliance with Nazi Germany,’’ ex- 3 presses “profound regret and indig - j nation” at his execution. ;