MORE “CONFESSIONS” AT BULGARIAN TRIAL OF PASTORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 February 1949, Page 5

MORE “CONFESSIONS” AT BULGARIAN TRIAL OF PASTORS

SOFIA February 26.

Yanko Nikdlov Ivanov, superintendent of the Methodist Church in Bulgaria, today confessed in court that he had collected information on political, economic, and military affairs for Britons and Americans. Ivanov and 14 other prominent Bulgarian priests are accused of espionage, treason, and black marketing. Ivanov said that he had toured the country several times collecting information which had been passed on to Miss Melany Turner, principal of an American school in Bulgaria, and later to her successor, Miss Helen Cooper. He said that he had received about £lO,OOO from Miss Turner. In 1946 he had reported on the Bulgarian political situation to the World Council of Churches. “I pointed out the error made by the British and Americans on September 3, 1944, when they did not occupy Bulgaria.” Ivanov said that he had rejected Communism from the beginning but that after his arrest he had had a chance to lift up the curtain —to see enlightenment. Vassil Ziapkov, who heads the list if Bulgarian priests accused of espionage and treason, told the court that he admitted the charges. He repeated almost verbatim the written confession contained in the Government Yellow Book. Ziapkov said that after studying m England and the United States he had returned to Bulgaria very proEnglish and pro-American. He said that his espionage activities had begun in 1932. Ziapkov attacked the World Council of Churches, claiming that it had been converted into an agency of American capitalism merely to fight Communism. “Now I realise that I have been m the service of great enemies of my country,” he added. “These enemies could not abide a flourishing Bulgaria alongside a Greece torn by disorder.” '