Church Leaders Plead Guilty
SOFIA, Sun.—More abject confessions and pleas of repentance were made when the trial of 15 Bulgarian Protestant Church leaders opened in Sofia.
The three accused who have been called so far pleaded guilty and praised the Communist State. A 7000-word indictment charges them with having formed an intelligence centre to collect information for the West, with having sought a Western occupation of Bulgaria, and with having spread rumours of war ■ and slanders against Russia. In addition, they are charged with black market and currency dealing. The superintendent of the Methodist Church in Bulgaria (Yanko Nikolov Dinnov) prefaced his confession with the words: “Do not believe in man, because when he is in trouble he frequently lies. I will now confess, my crimes. I will tell you that I am a criminal and a sinner.”
Another of the accused, Vassil Zyapkov, told the court that he admitted the charges. He repeated almost verbatim the written confession contained in the Government’s Yellow Book.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19490228.2.81
Bibliographic details
Northern Advocate, 28 February 1949, Page 5
Word Count
165Church Leaders Plead Guilty Northern Advocate, 28 February 1949, Page 5
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Northern Advocate. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence . This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in