SOFIA OUTRAGE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18366, 27 April 1925, Page 11

SOFIA OUTRAGE.

WAR ON COMMUNISTS.

AN APPEAL TO THE WORLD

(bt cabls—>*bss association—copraiGHT.) (SIDJTZT "Sun" Sin VICE.)

LONDON, April 23,

The Sofia correspondent of the "Daily Mail" says that Parliament, when ratifying the martial law docree, vociferously applauded the speech of the wounded Primo Minister and Ministers, especially General Yelcoff, Minister of War, who was lamed by the bomb.

Many members had their heads bandagod.

Most- of the leaders of the Communists have been arrested or shot for resisting arrest. The '' Daily Herald'' prints a lengthy dispatch from Colonel Wedgwood, affirming that the Sofia Cathedral outrage was the sequel to a long course of agitation and repression in which the peasants and Macedonian insurgent movements eventually joined hands with the Communists. It is alleged that within three days of the outrage six thousand arrests and 250 executions took placo in Sofia alone. The British and American Ministers and missionaries are interceding, but the Government has no longer control of affairs, which are in the'hands of officers of the League and armed bands.

A message received in Eome from Belgrade says that King Boris practically is held- prisoner in the Boyal Palace by the militarists, headed by General Lazareff, w'n ois the real dictator of Bulgaria. This action has been taken in consequence of a suggestion by King Boris that M. Tzancoff should resign with a view to the formation of a Cabinet incorporating Opposition elements.

The Bulgarian police unearthed Ouloff, one of Minkoff's chief confederates, and called upon him to surrender. Ouloff refused and was shot dead. General EoussefF, Bulgarian Minister of th» Interior, told a party of foreign newspaper correspondents that evidence in the possession of the Government showed that the Communist societies of Moscow and others in close touch therewith organised bandß, the bulk of tho members of which wore drawing a monthly subsidy from their taskmasters in the Kremlin with a bonus for each crime committed. The total arrests do not exceed 1500. The struggle against i anarehv will be carried on unitodly. t Bulgaria desires peace but has been forced to fight the spectre of Communism. M. Kousseff appealed for the civilised world's moral support of Bulgaria in her hour of trial and suffering.

FURTHER DESTRUCTION.

(BBTM'S TIMOX4HS.)

(Received April 27th, 12.10 a.m.)

SOFIA, April 26. The theatre at Plevna, also the Municipal Library, which was one of the largest in Bulgaria, were destroyed by fire, which was started by an Agrarian Communist, who placed bombs beneath the stage of the theatre. No iives were lost.

Kassaboffj alleged to bo one of the Sofia conspirators, was killed in the course of a fusillade.