site.btaMay 27, 1925: 100 Years since Bulgaria's Last Public Execution

Exactly one hundred years ago, on May 27, 1925, a crowd of 30,000-40,000 watched Bulgaria's last public execution.

At 7:40 a.m., three men were taken to an empty field on the then southwestern outskirts of Sofia: Georgi Koev, Petar Zadgorski, and Marco Friedman. On May 11, 1925, the Sofia Drumhead Court-Martial sentenced them to "death by hanging in a public place" for their part in the April 16, 1925 terrorist bombing attack of Sofia's St Nedelya Cathedral, in which 134 people were killed on the spot and 79 of the 500 or so injured in the blast succumbed to their wounds later on, bringing the death toll to 213 (including 25 women and children).

Within just a week, the sentences were confirmed by the Military Court of Cassation and by King Boris III.

On May 27, after the court clerk read out the sentences, the condemned were allowed last words. Koev asked that a letter in his pocket be handed to his brother. Zadgorski requested that his watch and other personal effects be delivered to his sister. Friedman wished that his family be spared persecution and that the money in his pocket be given to the executioner "to do his job properly".

The three were hanged on separate white gallows. As one last act of torture, the procedure was successive rather than simultaneous. Koev was the first to die, then Zadgorski and, lastly, at 9:00 a.m., Friedman (his plea to be shot like an officer had been denied).

The execution was extensively reported, photographed and filmed, and the footage was screened in newsreels.