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Yakov Peters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yakov Khristoforovich Peters (Яков Христофорович Петерс) (December 3 {November 21 O.S.}, 1886 - April 25, 1938) was a deputy director of the Cheka in the Soviet Union and acting director from July 7 to August 22 1918. In English he was known as "Jacob Peters" or "Jan Peters".
Born in Latvia, he lived in London for a time after the 1905 Revolution. He was part of a criminal gang of political exiles that carried out armed robberies. He took part in a failed jeweller's shop robbery at Houndsditch in which three police officers were killed in December 1910 and probably it was Peters that fired the fatal shots into Sergeants Bentley, Tucker and Choat. In the aftermath of the Sidney Street Siege, he and four others were put on trial in 1911. They were acquitted because of the failings of the prosecution to the dismay of the Home Secretary Winston Churchill.
He married Maisie Freeman, the daughter of a London banker, and they had a daughter. He returned to Russia in May 1917 and his wife later divorced him. He participated in the events of the Russian Revolution and joined the Cheka.
In later life he lived in Tashkent and perished in the Great Purge in 1938.
- FSB biographical info (Russian)