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French Court Clears Alleged Solar Temple Cult Leader
GRENOBLE, France, June 25 (News Agencies) - French judges cleared on Monday the Franco-Swiss conductor, Michel Tabachnik, of conspiring to brainwash members of the Solar Temple doomsday cult into willingly going to their deaths.
The court heard, in a sensational nine-day trial last month, that the 58-year-old musician was a key member of the cult and that his writings had paved the way for the ritual murder of 74 cultists between 1994 and 1997.
But, in a written verdict, the judges concluded that, "The evidence and the cross-examinations have not uncovered sufficient proof, beyond hypotheses" that Tabachnik had deliberately helped set up the killings.
The judges threw out three civil suits brought by relatives of the victims, whose burned bodies were found in remote sites in France, Switzerland and Canada, and returned a not guilty verdict on the main charge of "membership in a criminal group."
Prosecutors have ten days to decide whether or not to appeal the verdict.
Lawyer's acting for the victims' families and anti-sect associations said that the verdict showed how much France needed the recently passed law against cults.
"If Tabachnik had been prosecuted under this law he would not have escaped his punishment," lawyer Francis Vuillemin said.
Another lawyer, Joelle Vernay, said, "We are disappointed, but the main thing is that we have shown public opinion what these secret societies are and the dangers they represent."
"Tabachnik's criminal responsibility has not been demonstrated, but the judgment is damning on his moral responsibility," he added.
The musician was the only defendant in the trial held in the southeastern French town of Grenoble.
He admitted that he had been a cult member, but denied his esoteric and barely comprehensible writings inspired a mixture of occult, New Age and Rosicrucian theories and had created a "dynamic towards murder" within the sect.
Following the verdict, Tabachnik's lawyer, Francois Szpiner, told reporters, "Michel Tabachnik explained himself before the judges. He had confidence in them and he was right to do so. This brings to an end my client's long suffering."
State prosecutor, Pierre-Marie Cuny, had called for a five-year prison term for Tabachnik.
In summation, the prosecutor said, "Tabachnik is not the only person responsible. He is one of those responsible, which is a role that justifies sanction."
Tabachnik told the court that he had been drawn into the cult by its charismatic guru, Joseph di Mambro, and its new-age philosophy.
The Solar Temple gained worldwide notoriety after 74 of its members were found dead in isolated woodland clearings.
Several of the dead were shot or asphyxiated in what were apparently classified as ritual murders, although some are thought to have been willing participants in mass suicides.
Among the dead were the two founders of the sect, Luc Jouret and Di Mambro. The two men allegedly milked followers of their money and convinced them that they must die in a blaze in order to attain bliss in the afterworld.
According to charges against Tabachnik, the conductor took part in two meetings of the Order in July and September 1994, during which he "announced the winding-up of the group and the conclusion of its mission."
The September meeting took place 11 days before 48 members of the sect, including at least five children, died via poison and gunshot wounds in Swiss farmhouses and chalets.
The judgment said that Tabachnik could have made the announcement with the intention of helping Jouret and Di Mambro paint the subsequent murders as a spiritual ritual.
But the conductor could just as easily have called for the sect to be wound up as part of the evolution of his own philosophy, as expressed in a series of tracks he had written at the time, the judges ruled.
Born in 1942 in Geneva, Tabachnik studied under French conductor Pierre Boulez and earned a reputation for his interpretation of contemporary music, holding orchestral posts in Canada, Portugal and France.
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