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Milan, after two years the court of appeal overturns the verdict of the lower court.
.     ,
'4'

, Judgment made against the "church" of Scientology

MIkAN - lwo years later: drama - [he magistrate at the Court of Appeal in Milan has
completely overturned the verdict which had acquitted the 73 members of the Church
of Sciento]ogy "invented" by the American k. Ron Hubbard, former science-fiction
author who died in 1986. Having listened to the deputy attorney general Annamaria
Caruso for over eleven hours, the magistrates acceded to her request and made a
judgment -~gainst the members who were charged with conspiracy, extortion, criminal
action against minors and the infirm, and given various sentences ranging from three
months to four and a half years. The Court of Appeal also sentenced various
officials of a number of regional centres for tax evasion and who had originally
been acquitted in the lower court.
In his 300 page speech the Deputy attorney general Caruso emphasized the fact that
it was not religion that was on trial. "This is no crusade" - said the attorney
general, ."we are not h~re to put the religious faith of the church of Scientology
           ,                I
on trial, but a group of people who were certainly members of that Church and in whose name crimes were committed.
!

"Their religious beliefs", insisted Caruso, "are of no concern to us here. BUt those who hold those beliefs are in the dock today because they violated the Criminal Code. What we are concerned with is the conduct and methods used to persuade others to use the very same methods".

On 2rid July 1991, after a 2-year trial at the lower court, the charges against the accused had been virtually dropped, to the great joy of the practitioners of Dianetics whose greeted the verdict with hooligan like singing and shouting. The grounds for a judgment, running to just 100 pages, compared with the 2 volumes needed to summarise the 45 charges brought against the 73 accused, did not stand up to the scrutiny of the evidence presented at the appeal court. Yesterday the magistrates overturned the acquittal having listened to the evidence presented by the Public Prosecutor Pietro~Forno and his colleague Caruso.

The church of Scientology is a kind of religious multinational with about seventy centres in sixty countries and 8 million members overall. Its activities have often brought it to the attention of the courts, especially following reports from former members.



 
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