trial report Minton ./. Weber etc
27 Mar 2001
Tilman Hausherr <tilman@berlin.snafu.de>
I was at the trial Minton v. Weber today. The scientologist attorney asked for more time, then rather for an extension to submit another filing so he doesn't have to appear in Berlin again.
The court will decide later today whether such a response is needed at all. The reason was that Minton's attorney had submitted a brief that the opposing attorney said he had received on the 20th. Because of that, he said that more research was needed. Minton's attorney said that it isn't right that they first print their accusations, and then do their research.
In german trials the court usually indicates what it thinks of the lawsuit, and then oral briefs are made about the topic.
The court said:
- there is no indication that Minton has been involved in shady
movements of billions of dollars ("Milliardengeldschiebereien")
- he did do the debt buy-back
- no evidence that he helped hide any money
- scientology isn't a "citizens organisation" ("Bürgerinitiative") that
can't be expected to do some research. (The background is that according
to Minton's attorney, scientology had done a LEXIS-NEXIS search but had
somehow ignored the facts contained in some articles) While the court
wouldn't say that scientology has an "intelligence service", it called
scientology a large organisation with enormous possibilities, so it has
to listen to the response of Minton, and it should have known of the
parliament report.
Many of the oral allegations of the scientology attorney were similar to what has been claimed on ars, e.g. that Minton has Caberta on a string, that he bribed her, that he set up money laundering foundation for Abacha, and that he was "sure" that Greenland was also there to funnel money into foreign countries.
Minton's attorney explained that scientology is doing a "perverse" campaign against Minton, based on the policies of scientology founder Hubbard, that Caberta is actually not even investigated for bribery, only for "Vorteilsnahme" which is something less. The scientology attorney explained that they don't know what she got the money for (i.e. what the exchange was), but that they will research it and prove it. He disliked that Minton's attorney had used that P-word and said that his criminal complaint against Caberta was not pervert, but that Caberta's office is a mess that has to be cleaned up. He said that the complaint in Switzerland was for real, but didn't explain why they could only provide some translation of it. He claimed that because Minton attacked scientology, scientology is allowed to attack Minton (the "right to answer"). That one can "return coins with notes". No need to do research first. Minton's attorney said that there isn't such a right to reply because it has nothing to do with his attacks on scientology, and Minton e.g. never spoke in Zehlendorf (a district in Berlin where FREIHEIT was distributed). Scientology's attorney said that it doesn't have to *prove* that Minton bribed Caberta, that this is the job of the state attorney's office. That there are 100 negative reports about Minton and only 3 that show his side.
Tilman
-- Tilman Hausherr [KoX, SP5.55] Entheta * Enturbulation * Entertainment tilman@berlin.snafu.de http://www.xenu.de
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