PASTOR'S "CONFESSION"

Chronicle (Levin), 23 February 1949, Page 5

PASTOR'S "CONFESSION"

Reuter -

Bishop Believes Duress And Torture Was Used

Copyright)

Received Wednesday, 10.5 a.m. LONDON, Feb. 22. The reported "confession" of Rev. Yanko Ivanov, Methodist Church superintendent in Sofia, who is one of the 15 Bulgarian pastors arrested on charges of espionage for Britain and the United States, "could have been „ secured only under duress and torture," said Dr. Paul Garber, Methodist Bishop for Central and Southern Europe, quoted by the Associated Press correspondent at Geneva. Dr. Garber said he had reliable information from Sofia* that Ivanov, while under arrest, had been questioned for 24 hours at a time without an intermission. Ivanov, although lame, had been forced to stand for hours, and was deprived of food and toilet privileges for long periods. He was also forced to do hard manual labour in a concentration camp. Ivanov's only "offence," said Dr. Garber,- had been to refuse to endorse the Communist regime in Bulgaria. Dr. Garber said that he had been reliably informed that Ivanov had been offered his fre.edom if he would sign a pledge of loyalty to the present regime and act as a spy for the government, but he had refused. Ivanov's wife had also been maltreated .by Bulgarian officials, said Dr. Garber, and had been forced to dig ditches and break stones in a work brigade in the streets of Sofia. Ivanov's two sons, had also been drrested. One had been sent to a labour camp, while nothing had been heard from the other since November. ^ The Bulgarian Foreign Office today notified the British Legation in Sofia ' that two members of the Legation's staff could attend the trial of the 15 pastors, which begins on February 25.