http://www.ttc.org/p990909a.htm
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FRANCE PLEDGES INQUIRY AFTER SCIENTOLOGY COURT FILES DESTROYED
PARIS, Sept 8 (AFP) - France on Wednesday pledged a full inquiry into
the destruction of prosecution evidence against the Church of
Scientology, the second time in less than a year that scientology
trial documents have gone astray.
"I want the whole truth", said Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou
after an official government panel expressed concern that
scientologists may have infiltrated the French administration.
"Was it an error? Was it sabotage?" she asked when speaking to
reporters about the incident. "It seems a priori to have been an error
.. But I want full light shed."
In the southern port city of Marseille, where the documents were
stored ahead of a trial of seven scientologists scheduled to begin on
September 20, the prosecutor's office said the files had been
destroyed by mistake during a routine clean-out in the court clerk's
office.
It denied the documents were done away with "voluntarily and with
malicious intent" and said the trial could go ahead as scheduled as
none of the missing material was key evidence to the prosecution case
against scientologists accused of fraud, illegal exercise of medicine
and bodily harm.
"The case is ready and is complete. There's no reason to delay the
trial," deputy prosecutor Yves Le Baut told AFP. He could not say when
or how the documents were destroyed, simply that "a certain number of
boxes" were involved.
Seven scientology officials who operated in Nice and in Marseille are
to face charges -- notably of fraudulent business practises --
following complaints filed almost 10 years ago by followers.
These included a French businessman, Raymond Scapillato, who fell
seriously ill after attending a scientology course.
The religion, whose members include actors John Travolta and Tom
Cruise, promises spiritual advancement and self-therapy through cures
and devices inspired by the writings of late science-fiction author L.
Ron Hubbard, who spelt out principles that he called scientology and
dianetics.
Guigou said she was also awaiting the results of an internal probe
into the disappearance at the Paris courthouse last October of another
set of documents concerning a separate case against the church. "Light
will be shed on both cases," she pledged.
A spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, Danielle Gounord, said
the organisation had nothing to with the missing documents.
"I'm as surprised as you are," Gounord told AFP, adding that the
charges facing the seven was "a local-level aberration" that "has
nothing to do with the general way the Church of Scientology
operates."
But France's inter-ministerial committee against sects --
scientologists are considered to be part of a sect in France -- said
in a statement that it was "stupefied" by the destruction of the
documents.
"The question arises again of knowing whether certain state offices
have been infiltrated by sectarian groups. There must be no delay in
answering this question." it said in a written statement.
The deputy speaker of the National Assembly, Socialist member Raymond
Forni, also suggested a conspiracy was at work.
"I don't believe for a minute that they were destroyed accidentally,"
he said.
France, along with Germany, has come under repeated attack in the
United States for classifying the Church of Scientology as a sect.
Established in Los Angeles in 1954, the wealthy organisation claims
eight million members worldwide, with an estimated 30,000 followers in
France.
This year, the Russian secret service stepped up surveillance of the
church amid suspicion it was violating basic rights of members, using
violence if need be, and engaging in illicit financial business.
And German federal and state interior ministers late last year decided
to maintain an almost two-year watch on the church, which they view as
a subversive organization.
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