Scientology sent for trial in Belgium

A Belgian court has sent Scientologists and two of the movement's organisations for trial on fraud and other charges: but it is still a long road to the courtroom.

A court in Belgium on Thursday sent two Scientology organisations and 11 Scientologists for trial on fraud and other charges, the Belga news agency reported.

Two Belgian non-profits targetted

The Chambre de Conseil had for several months been considering whether two criminal investigations against the movement, one dating back as far as 1997, should go to court.

The cases, now merged into one, involve accusations of fraud, illegal practice of medicine and the non-respect of privacy laws.

One allegation police investigated was over the placing of false job adverts that gave the impression that paid work was available when in fact it was for unpaid work.

Perhaps the most important feature of Thursday's ruling is that it names two Scientology non-profit organisations in Belgium and not just members of the movement.

Prosecutors are going after the Church of Scientology in Belgium and the Brussels-based European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights.

Since federal prosecutors are characterising Scientology as a criminal organisation, that might mean it could be banned in Belgium if convicted – at least according to Belgian press reports.

The court ordered that the case regarding a 11th Scientologist should be transferred to a separate court because he is an English-speaker.

And it ruled that the statute of limitations for the offences alleged in the case of at least one other Scientologist had expired.

The individuals and the two organisations sent for trial have the right to appeal the Belgian court's decision within 15 days, which they are doing.

A ‘modern inquisition’

Scientology has already issued a statement attacking the ruling and vowing to defend itself.

All those sent for trial have 15 days in which to lodge an appeal and Scientology has already made it clear that it will fight all the way.

“We cannot help but hope that this interminable investigation is nothing less than a modern inquisition and an affront to freedom of religion and the rights of the defence,” said a Scientology statement.

The time the investigation had taken — the earliest of the two dates back to 1997 — showed that the facts were “non-existent” and that the case was “made up of rumours, attributing motives and lies to what the Scientology religion really is,” the statement added.

Scientology should not be treated any differently from other religions, it insisted, concluding that the movement would fight to the very end any “any biased criminal proceedings that violates their basic rights”.

Belgian broadcaster RTBF spoke to lawyers on either side of the case.

Maître Bruno Dayez, who represents some of the plaintiffs, welcomed the fact that the criminal case was being sent for trial.

“It’s already really one point clearly in our favour,” he told Belgian broadcaster RTBF.

As for the rest, even if there are procedural obstacles, we are still entitled to act at the civil level — so even if the case were to collapse on the criminal side that would not mean for all that that I would not pursue compensation for my clients to the end.”

After 17 years of investigation however, Scientology’s lawyers will argue that the case has dragged on too long for it to come to trial.

“It does pose a problem, to have such long proceedings,” Maître Pierre Monville, who represents one of the defendants, told RTBF.

“The infractions stretch back into time and are hidden and so it is difficult to see what someone is being accused of when you go through 20 years in the life of an association,” he added.

The charge sheet, RTBF reported, includes accusations of the illegal practice of medicine; fraud; extortion; false representation; the non-respect of privacy; and criminal organisation.

According to one media report, the ruling was sufficiently well formulated to provoke the admiration of one of the defence lawyers. “Magnifique,” he said after it had been read out in court Thursday morning.

But there is still a way to go before the case gets to trial — if indeed it ever does.

Once the appeals are lodged, it could take months for the higher court to deliver its ruling, Belgian media reported. And if that goes against Scientology, it might even be possible for the defendants to find grounds for a further appeal on a point of law.

This would not be the first time the movement has tried to kill off the case against it.

Scientology has already tried to get the earlier of the two cases involved here thrown out.

Their lawyers argued that prosecutors’ comments to the news media in the years following the launch of the 1997 investigation had prejudiced their right to a fair trial.

After arguing their case in vain in the Belgian courts, they filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights, but the Strasbourg-based court also rejected their complaint, as reported here at the time.

Thursday's ruling in Belgium follows the definitive conviction last year in France of two Scientology organisations – and several Scientologists – for fraud.

And as we have reported here before, there is every sign that Belgian investigators have learned from the approach taken in France.

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This report is a revised version of the material filed earlier to Tony Ortega’s site, The Underground Bunker.

Paris Fall-out II

A Scientologist who tried to get France’s counter-cult group UNADFI sanctioned over its role in a major court case against the movement got a taste of her own medicine.

A Scientologist convicted in France's landmark fraud case against the movement has failed in a bid to get counter-cult group UNADFI and its lawyer fined for its role in the case.

Instead the Paris court that heard her complaint decided to award damages and legal costs against her. And with similar cases launched by Scientologists in the pipeline, this could be the first of a number of such reverses for the movement.

As covered here at length, Sabine Jacquart, a former president of Scientology's Celebrity Centre in Paris, was convicted with others of organised fraud in a landmark 2009 trial.1

That case, which for the first time saw two Scientology organisations in France among those convicted, was confirmed on appeal in 2011.

Jacquart's civil case against Morice was argued in a Paris civil court last October 16 – the same day the country's highest court confirmed the criminal convictions against her, four other Scientologists and the two Scientology organisations.

In her complaint, Jacquart denounced the fact that UNADFI and its lawyer Olivier Morice had played a key role at every stage of that trial.

Both the criminal court that handled the original trial and the appeal court that took it over eventually refused UNADFI plaintiff status. But those decisions were only handed down after each trial was over; after Morice had played a full role in the proceedings.

Jacquart argued that because she had been obliged to defend herself from UNADFI, an association that no business being in court in the first place, she had not received a fair trial. Scientology's lawyers lodged similar protests at both the original trial and the trial on appeal.

What made the situation worse, she argued, was that at the time in question the association's statutes were not even properly formulated, which meant it had no legal standing. UNADFI should not even have been allowed to lodge its bid for plaintiff status, she contended.

Scientology's lawyers also raised this issue during the trial on appeal, provoking a monumental courtroom row that required the intervention of the batônnier, the court mediator, to restore order.2

In her complaint, Jacquart asked the court to fine both Morice and UNADFI for their conduct in this affair and to send the criminal case back to a judge to consider if it should be re-examined.

UNADFI and Morice, in their responses argued that although the association had been refused the status of plaintiff in the fraud trial, it was not because of any question over the legality of its statutes. And given that the courts had rejected UNADFI's bid, Jacquart had no grounds for complaint against it.

UNADFI also argued that since Jacquart had not even attended the trial on appeal, it was difficult to see how her right to a fair hearing had been violated.

Blowback

UNADFI and Morice objected to Jacquart's characterisation of them as meddling in court cases that did not concern them, of doing everything they could to harass and overwhelm the defendants.

They had simply been exercising their legal rights in a proper manner, they said.

Far from UNADFI harassing Scientology, the association contended that Scientology had for years been going after UNADFI in the courts: Jacquart must have known that the movement was on a mission to neutralise them, the association argued.

They asked the court to fine Jacquart for attacking them in this way.

The prosecutor's office, in its submission, also described Jacquart's action as unfounded. It saw nothing improper with UNADFI's decision to appeal the original court ruling that had denied it plaintiff status.

The court, in its ruling, rejected all Jacquart's claims. If she had a problem with UNADFI's continued presence in the courtroom, she should have raised the issue earlier, it said.

But it not only dismissed her suggestion that UNADFI and Morice had behaved improperly; it ruled that Jacquart’s bid to have them sanctioned was itself an abuse of the legal process.

The court ordered her to pay Morice 15,000 in damages and 5,000 euros to UNADFI.3 She was also instructed to pay their legal costs, another 7,000 euros.

Only a few days ago, the movement in France was making much of a ruling that awarded some of the defendants in the long-running affair damages for unacceptable delays in the case (it dates back to 1998).4

There was no word in their press release about this result however, even though it was handed down the same day, January 22.

UNADFI president Catherine Picard told Infinite Complacency that a number of the other defendants in the fraud case have filed similar complaints against them.

The two Scientology organised convicted last year of organised fraud – the Celebrity Centre and the movement's network of bookshops in France Scientologie espace librarie – have both bought cases.

So too has Alain Rosenberg, the former executive director of the Celebrity Centre convicted along with Jacquart of organised fraud and the illegal practice of pharmacy in the same case.

Picard is hoping for similar results in those cases, in rulings due next month.

If those cases do go the same way, that will rather put the dampers on Scientology's celebrations last week.

Perhaps more importantly however, it will give Scientology less leverage for their Strasbourg complaint.

For they want to protest their fraud convictions at the European Court of Human Rights by arguing that the French courts did not give them a fair trial.

So a result in any of these civil complaints would strengthen their case.

No joy so far.

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1   Jacquart was also convicted of the illegal practice of pharmacy over the massive doses of vitamins used in the Purification Rundown.

2   For a more complete account, see “Paris Appeal Trial II” elsewhere at this site. When the hearings resumed the next day, it was clear the court was not moved by the defence arguments: shortly afterwards they and their lawyers walked out of the proceedings in protest at what they said was the denial of their basic rights. See “The Big Walk-out”.

3   The sums the court ordered Jacquart to pay correspond with what UNADFI had asked for in its counter-claim.

4   See Saturday’s post: “Paris Fall-out I”.

Paris Fall-out I

A French court has awarded Scientology damages for delays in the long legal battle that ended in fraud convictions against it last year. But it's not quite the victory they were hoping for.

Scientologists were celebrating this week after a French court awarded the movement damages for delays in the court case that ended in fraud convictions against the organisation last year.

The court acknowledged in part their complaint that the judicial process, in a case that stretches back to a complaint filed in December 1998, had at times been unacceptably slow.

But the sums involved are a far cry from the one million euros they were seeking. And the court rejected their most serious accusation: that the state had committed gross negligence (faute lourde) at the original trial.

Scientology's main grievance centred around the prosecution's call for the two Scientology organisations in the dock to be shut down.

That request, which came during closing arguments at the original 2009 trial, was something of a bombshell at the time and got international coverage.

It later transpired however that this sanction – la dissolution de la personne morale – was not available to the court. Just weeks before the trial began, deputies had voted this measure off the statute books as part of a package of measures.

The then government insisted that this had been an administrative error and the sanction has since been restored – but too late to be applied in this case.

As we reported here at the time, the incident sparked a major row here in France at the time, with Scientology fiercely denying suggestions from some quarters that it might somehow have had a hand in the crucial change to the law.

The Celebrity Centre, one of two Scientology organisations whose conviction for organised fraud was upheld by France's highest court last year, was among the plaintiffs in this latest case.

It was asking for 935,000 euros in all – 900,000 of it for the prosecution's alleged negligence in calling for its dissolution.

Scientologie Espace Librarie (SEL), the other organisation convicted of organised fraud last year, sought 100,000 euros in damages over what it argued were repeated delays in the legal process.

Four of the Scientologists convicted of fraud or the illegal practice of pharmacy in the same trial claimed more modest sums for what they said were unacceptable delays in the case:1

• Alain Rosenberg, former managing director of the Celebrity Centre, asked for 20,000 euros;
• Sabine Jacquart former president of the Celebrity Centre, asked for 45,000 euros;
• François Valli, a former top salesman at the SEL bookshop, who also worked for the Celebrity Centre, asked for 35,500 euros;
• Aline Fabre, who once supervised the Purification Rundown at the Celebrity Centre, asked for 20,000.

While the court found partially in their favour, it did not give them the sums they were looking for.

The four individual plaintiffs received 7,000 euros each; the Celebrity Centre and the SEL bookshops just 3,500.2 The court ordered the state to pick up their legal costs, but did rejected Scientology’s request to have judgment published in the French press.

The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris heard arguments in the case on December 4 and handed down its ruling on January 22.

It took only a few paragraphs to dismiss the more serious charge of gross negligence. It was not impressed with the file of press clippings from French and international newspapers that Scientology's lawyers submitted to court.

That the prosecutions's call for the two organisations on trial to be dissolved had received international coverage did not of itself establish that the prosecutor's had been negligent, the court noted.

Lead prosecutor Maud Morel-Coujard dropped the bombshell during closing arguments in the first trial, back in June 15, 2009. What she didn't know was that the law had been changed just weeks earlier, on May 12.

The court ruling noted that the defence lawyers did not appear to know either: they did not, after all, raise the issue during their own closing arguments, which followed that of the prosecutors.3

In any case this week's judgment noted that the court's sentence against the defendants issued in October 2009 had not included the sanction in question. It had preferred to impose hefty fines against the two organisations.

It was difficult then, to see what harm had been done, the judgment concluded, dismissing the claim for gross negligence.

Unacceptable delays

The ruling did accept that there had been unreasonable delays however – though not all of those cited by Scientology in their complaint.

The Scientologists had denounced a 14-year judicial marathon before the case even came to court. But this period had been a busy one, with legal procedures on both sides, the court noted.4

By the time investigation had been completed, nine people were facing charges, a tenth was “a person of interest” and there were four plaintiffs seeking redress (at that stage at least).

Add to that reports from expert witnesses, paperwork generated by search warrants and normal process of an investigation and that added up to a lot of paperwork, the court added: 1,839 individual documes covering 23 volumes in all.

The court did however agree that it had taken too long bring the case to court once the investigation was completed in June 2004.

The trial after all, only opened in May 2009 – at least two years later than it should have, even accounting for the complications of the case.5

And after the initial convictions in October 2009, it took at least a year too long for the trial on appeal to open, the court added. (Proceedings finally got underway in November 2011.)

Eric Roux, one of Scientology’s spokesmen in France, welcomed the ruling in a statement.

“It is a decision that proves the inequitable character of this procedure, as well as the breaches of the fundamental rights of the Scientologists which have marred this affair from the start,” he said.6

Scientology was in the process of formulating a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights over the these convictions, he added.

It remains to be seen however, whether the Strasbourg will even agree to consider it.

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1   Valli was convicted of fraud. Fabre was convicted of the illegal practice of pharmacy over the massive doses of vitamins used in the Purification Rundown. Rosenberg and Jacquart were convicted of both offences. For full details see the summary of the final judgment here.

2   SEL, the judgment noted in passing, had provided no evidence to support its claim that it had suffered financially from the legal delays.

3   In fact, Patrick Maisonneuve, Scientology's lead lawyer at the original trial, has told news weekly Le Point that while he knew the law had been changed, he did not see it was his job to tip off the court to the prosecutor's mistake. Maisonneuve told Le Point: “We had decided not to raise this question because we were pleading for release and not for (a lighter) sentence. We didn't want to make this public until the judgment.”“La Scientologie se savait Intouchable” Le Point (October 27, 2009).

News of the change in the law broke in mid-September after the lawyer for counter-cult group UNADFI Olivier Morice tipped off Georges Fenech at the government's cult watchdog MIVILUDES. He went public in September 2009, so the court had plenty of notice before it handed down its verdicts and sentences the following month – assuming they hadn't already spotted the problem. See “The Great Escape?”, elsewhere at this site.

4   Scientologist Aline Fabre had written to the court complaining about the time the investigation was taking, the judgment noted: but she had not been able to indicate any point during that period when the case had actually been dormant, with no party on either side taking any action.

5   The ruling acknowledged the complications caused by the fact that the prosecutor's office announced in September 2006 that it did not want to go ahead with the case while the investigating magistrate decided to take it to court anyway. It recognised too that a new investigating magistrate appointed to the case needed time to read up on it. Nevertheless, both the prosecutors and the investigating magistrates were found at different stages to have taken longer than they should have to move the case forward.

6   "Condamnation de l'Etat Français”, posted on January 22, the day the judgment was issued, both at Scientology's PR website and elsewhere.

The Paris Trial coverage: 2009-2014

Start here for exhaustive coverage of the Paris trial of Scientology for organised fraud: reports from inside the courtrooms and details of the broader political controversy.

Listed below is Infinite Complacency's complete coverage of the Paris trial of Scientology for fraud, organised fraud and the illegal practice of pharmacy.

You will find reports from the original trial in 2009, the 2011 appeal, all the way through to the final ruling at the Court of Cassation, France's top court, in 2013. There is extensive analysis too of the battles fought outside the courtroom.

And since Scientology tried to take its case to the European Court of Human Rights, I covered that in the final article, "Case Closed".

Introduction

WEEK 1: May 25-27

1 The Original Plaintiff

A Paris court is to try six Scientologists and two of the movement’s associations in a case that could lead to much of its operations in France being shut down.

2 Defendant #1: the Facilitator

After the first plaintiff had testified, the defendant accused of having defrauded her gave his side of the story.

3 Defendant #2 the Salesman

On the third day of the Paris trial of Scientology, the judge questioned another defendant, one of the movement’s top salesmen.

4 The Second Plaintiff

A second plaintiff told the court how her Scientologist employer had put her under ever-increasing pressure to take the movement’s courses.

5 The Psychiatrist's Testimony

Scientology’s techniques abuse the transference process familiar to all therapists, a psychiatrist told the court.

6 The Company Director

A Paris court heard how a company director's massive spending on Scientology put his business at risk.

WEEK 2: June 2-3

7 The Purification Rundown

As a Paris court considered the high doses of vitamins used in Scientology's Purification Rundown, an expert witness dismissed the programme as quackery.

8 A Cure for Radiation

Scientology's Purification Rundown – combining exercise, sauna sessions and massive doses of vitamins – is not just a religious ritual but can also cure radiation, one defendant told the court.

9 Defendant #3 The Executive Director I

The onetime executive director of Scientology’s Paris Celebrity Centre, presented a vigorous defence to the court – to the point that he had to be called to order by his own lawyer.

10 The Executive Director II

Questioned closely by the judge about the substantial amounts of money taken from clients, the former executive director of the Celebrity Centre insisted that Scientology was about “ethics, honesty, respect”.

11 Defendant #4 The President I

Between tears and anger, the former president of Scientology’s Paris Celebrity Centre denounced what she called the persecution of her church – and her own harassment by critics of the movement.

12 The Celebrity Centre President II

Under hostile questioning from the plaintiffs' lawyers and the prosecution, the former president of the Celebrity Centre became increasingly emotional.

13 The E-Meter Experts

Scientology called two expert witnesses to defend the effectiveness of the e-meter used in their counselling sessions – but did not quite get what they had bargained for.

Appendix: Kirchner on the E-Meter

This short annexe explains why one expert thought that Scientologists didn't know how to operate their own e-meter.

WEEK 3: June 8-10

14 The Suppressive, Brard

Veteran politician Jean-Pierre Brard sketched a damning profile of Scientology in a presentation that ranged from its financial structure to theories of mind control.

15 The Apostate, Gonnet I

Scientology’s personality test is fixed to exaggerate people’s weaknesses and Scientologists themselves are trained to lie to the court, former member Roger Gonnet told the court.

16 The Apostate, Gonnet II

Scientology’s Purification Rundown is so dangerous it almost killed one of his clients, former Scientologist Roger Gonnet told the Paris court.

17 A Doctor backs the Rundown

A US doctor mounted a vigorous defence of Scientology’s Purification Rundown, the controversial treatment at the centre of the Paris trial.

18 A Maestro, a Scholar, a Psych

A succession of defence witnesses lined up to defend Scientology, including an internationally recognised concert pianist, a distinguished academic – even a psychiatrist.

19 The True Believers

More witnesses stepped forward to speak up for the defendants and denounce what they said was French persecution of their religion.

20 Irreconcilable Differences

As more Scientologists spoke up for the defendants and their own beliefs, the gulf between their vision of accused and that of the plaintiffs grew ever wider.

21 Picard for UNADFI

Should UNADFI, the French anti-cult federation, be allowed the status of plaintiff in the case against Scientology? UNADFI president Catherine Picard debated the issue with the movement's lawyers.

22 The Celebrity Centre I

The personality test is not a major recruitment tool, all refund requests are granted and “hard sell” means taking care of people, a Scientologist told the court.

23 The Celebrity Centre II

The Purification Rundown is a religious purification rite that cures nothing, Scientologist Eric Roux told the court.

24 The Bookshop

Scientology’s network of bookshops in France is entirely independent of the Paris Celebrity Centre, its representative insisted, defending a key plank of their joint defence against fraud charges.

25 Confrontations

As the third week of the trial drew to a close the main plaintiff, Aude-Claire Malton, fended off a final challenge from the defence lawyers.

WEEK 4: CLOSING ARGUMENTS June 15-17

26 ...for the Pharmacists

Medicinal claims made for Scientology’s Purification Rundown – and the high doses of vitamins used – amount to the illegal practice of pharmacy, said the lawyer representing France's Order of Pharmacists.

27 ...for the remaining Plaintiffs

Unscrupulous organisations can gain a psychological hold on people, argued the lawyer for the plaintiffs -- and Scientology is a past master at the art.

28 ...for the Prosecution I

The prosecutors’ closing arguments created a sensation at the trial: as well as calling for convictions for the individual defendants, they argued for the dissolution of the two organisations charged.

29 ...for the Prosecution II

The second half of the prosecution’s closing arguments focussed on the evidence of fraud – by the individual defendants and the two Scientology organisations charged.

What the Prosecution wants

A round-up of the sentences the prosecution called for.

30 Defending the Go-Between

The go-between who supplied vitamins for the Purification Rundown is a victim of France’s obsession with prosecuting ‘cults’ and its refusal to respect European law on food supplements, her lawyer argued.

31 Defending the Supervisor

The Scientologist who supervised the Purification Rundown had no case to answer: her accusers had decided she was guilty simply because of her beliefs, her lawyer argued.

32 Defending the CC President

The former president of the Celebrity Centre is a scapegoat in a symbolic trial against Scientology, said her lawyer, citing a host of distinguished legal authorities on freedom of religion.

33 Defending the Facilitator

A devoted Scientologist risks being convicted for his beliefs because the government has left the job of dealing with Scientology to the courts instead of assuming its responsibilities, his lawyer argued.

34 Defending the Salesman

The Scientologist and salesman accused of fraud has been tried in an atmosphere tainted by media hysteria and soured by a prosecution summing up that smacks of the Inquisition, his lawyer argued.

35 Defending the Executive Director

The former executive director of Scientology's Celebrity Centre should not be convicted because three people out of thousands of happy Scientologists had filed complaints, his lawyer argued.

36 ...defending the Bookshop (SEL)

SEL, France's network of Scientology bookshops, is the victim of a modern witch hunt in which the trappings of the movement's beliefs have been interpreted as evidence of its guilt, said SEL's lawyer.

37 ...defending the Celebrity Centre

The Celebrity Centre should not be convicted on the basis of prejudice and preconceptions against Scientology, lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve argued, as the trial drew to a close.

38 The Great Escape?

A hitherto unnoticed change in French law will prevent a court from dissolving the two Scientology organisations charged in the Paris trial, as prosecutors had recommended.

39 Summary of the Judgment

A summary of the verdict and sentences in the Paris trial of Scientology, following the same format as What the Prosecution Wants, posted earlier.

40 Reviewing the Judgment

A detailed review and analysis of the original court judgment ahead of the trial on appeal.

41 The appeal: preparing the ground

Even before its appeal trial opened, Scientology fought back against the 2009 fraud convictions with accusations of judicial bias and suggestions of political pressure.

42 Paris Appeal Trial I

Scientology had vowed to expose the case against them as empty. In court however, the procedural motions launched by their lawyers' delayed any examination of the facts of the case.

43 Paris Appeal Trial II

Scientology’s lawyers took three hours to attack counter-cult group UNADFI’s bid to be admitted as a plaintiff in the Paris appeal trial. Ten minutes into their lawyer’s response, the proceedings degenerated into a shouting match.

44 Paris Appeal Trial III

The judge in Scientology’s Paris appeal trial deferred a decision on French counter-cult group UNADFI’s status at the trial, effectively allowing them to play a full role in proceedings – a major blow to the defence.

45 The Big Walk-Out

On the sixth day of the trial on appeal, after the court rejected Scientology's final bid to exclude the counter-cult group UNADFI from the proceedings, the defendants and their lawyers walked out, claiming they were being denied a fair trial.

What the Prosecution wants (appeal)

The prosecutor in the Paris appeal trial of Scientology called for the fines handed down to the two Scientology organisations convicted at the original trial to be more than doubled.

46 The Appeal Court Judgment

The Court of Appeal in Paris confirmed the convictions of the two Scientology organisations for organised fraud, a decision which some say is the beginning of the end for the movement.

47 The Fallout

Leading opponents of Scientology say the Paris appeal court convictions of two of its organisations mark the beginning of the end for the movement in France. It is no idle threat.

48 Scientology Cries Foul I

Scientology is arguing that the magistrate who prepared the organised fraud case against it was “indoctrinated”: the latest in a series of bids to get its conviction overturned.

49 Scientology Cries Foul II

Scientology's campaign to present its Paris convictions as a miscarriage of justice betrays the movement's conspiratorial mindset.

Arguments in Cassation

50 How We Got Here

France's top court will next week rule whether the appeal court's fraud convictions against Scientology should stand. Here is how we got here.

51 'An Impossible Defence'

It was not the role of the Paris Court of Appeal to act as a chamber of inquisition, a Scientology lawyer told France's top court.

52 Defending the Rundown

Vitamins used in Scientology's Purification Rundown are no more medicines than sweets or beauty products, a Scientology lawyer told France's top court.

53 'Une entreprise crapuleuse'

Scientology's religious freedom defence is irrelevant, the lawyer for counter-cult group UNADFI argued, as the state prosecutor denounced the movement as a “villainous enterprise”.

54 France's top court confirms fraud convictions

Four years after the first court ruling against the movement, Scientology has lost its appeal against fraud convictions at France's top court.

55 Paris Fall-out I

A French court has awarded Scientology damages for delays in the long legal battle that ended in fraud convictions against it last year. But it's not quite the victory they were hoping for.

56 Paris Fall-out II

A Scientologist who tried to get France’s counter-cult group UNADFI sanctioned over its role in a major court case against the movement got a taste of her own medicine.

57 Case Closed

The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed Scientology's bid to challenge its conviction for organised fraud in France. A second conviction in France could threaten its very existence there.

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