OUTRAGES IN BULGARIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19008, 4 May 1925, Page 9

OUTRAGES IN BULGARIA.

METHODS OF PUNISHMENT. SERIOUS CHARGES DENIED. COLONEL WEDGWOOD'S STORY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrishl. (Received 5.5 p.m.) Router. LONDON. May 2. The Bulgarian Legation iti London has issued a communique denying the statements made by Colonel J. Wedgwood, Labour M.P. for Newcastlc-under-Lyme, which were published in the Daily Herald on April 24, concerning the situation in Bulgaria. The document states that the persons arrested throughout Bulgaria do not exceed 2000. Of these 600 have been liberated. None have yet been tried, still less executed. Regret is expressed that Colonel Wedgwood and his friends spent only three days at Sofia. If they fiad remained longer they would have learned that the rumours to which they had given credence had no foundation in fact. The Agrarian-* 'ominunist conspiracy did not come from the constitutional Opposition. The latter includes Socialists, Democrats and Liberals, and all enjoy full political liberties and a free press. The London Labour paper, the Daily Herald, last week published a lengthy despatch from Colonel Wedgwood, who had just previously visited Bulgaria, affirming that the Sofia Cathedral outrage was a sequel to a long course of agitation and repression. Tic said the peasants and those concerned in the Macedonian insurgent movement eventually joined hands with the Communists. Colonel Wedgwood alleged that within three days of the outrage 6000 arrests were made and 250 executions were carried out in Sofia alone. The British and American Ministers and missionaries interceded, but the Government was no longer in control. The country was then, he said, in the hands of officers of the League and armed bands. Colonel Wedgwood expressed the opinion that the outrage was duo solely to the dissatisfaction of all the Opposition elements with (he military dictatorship of the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, M. Zankoff. Under his rule, said Colonel Wedgwood, his opponents had been arrested and executed without being tried. In a later report Colonel Wedgwood, Mr. W. Mackinder and Mr. P. B. Malone, M.P.'.s. stated that after the explosion iri Sofia lorries left the prisons during the night, taking batches of prisoners to the. country to be shot. The Government, which came into power through a series of murders, beginning with the assassination of the Premier, M. Stambendisky, in 1923. had, said the report, been guilty of ruthless tyranny. Many thousands of people had been tortured, strangled and pounded to death. This it. was thought would surely arouse a volcanic upheaval. The members urged the British and American people to protest against executions and imprisonment without trial.