Kalpatchieff, the antisemitic terrorist leader, who has been standing his trial here on the charge of kidnapping a number of Jews, in the course of which he killed a Bulgar chauffeur, and plotting to kidnap several of the leaders of Bulgarian Jewry, including the President of the Central Consistory of Bulgarian Jewry, Colonel Tadjer, and the President of the Bulgarian section of the Jewish Agency, M. Chaim Farchi, has been sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude.
Radon Radeff, the Secretary of the antisemitic Rodna Zastita organisation, who had admitted that he hid Kalpatchieff while the police were searching for him, has been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and Toma Stoyanoff, who was working with Kalpatchieff, has been sent to prison for eighteen months.
In legal quarters it is held that these are the severest sentences that could have been imposed under the Penal Code on the charges.
In Jewish quarters, however, the sentences are condemned as too lenient. It is not that we want the antisemites to suffer, the Jews say, but that we want others to be deterred by the severity of the sentences from committing similar outrages against the Jewish population.
The State Attorney, M. Goljueboff, who had demanded the death penalty for Kalpatchieff, had been called away urgently from Sofia, and was not in court when the sentences were announced. It is believed that he will lodge an appeal.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
