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Chapter 45 - Foreign Relations
Sec. 953 - Private correspondence with foreign governments
"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without
authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or
carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign
government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence
the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or
agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the
United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall
be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or
both."
Count 1: The covert intelligence operations that were initiated during
the early 1990s through the "France Investigations Handling Program,"
which was directed and executed by the "Office of Special Affairs
International" and which included the infiltration and manipulation of
the French Judicial system and the employment of an agent of the
French DST.
May 1990: Acting on a criminal complaint for fraud, medical quackery
and constraint French Metropolitan police of Nice and Marseille raided
the offices of the local Scientology missions [Exh. No. 285].
Computers and documents were seized. 26 persons were questioned, 11 of
them were temporarily placed in police custody.
June, July 1990: After a criminal complaint for fraud and medical
quackery has been filed against officials of the Scientology mission
in Lyon, French police arrests its director Jean-Jacques Mazier and
secretary Corinne Medallin. Thereafter, on July 6th, the investigating
judge George Fenech decides to expand his investigation and orders the
arrest of three leading French Scientology Officials, the OSA-members
Danielle Gounord, Jean-Paul Chappelet and Yves Veau [Exh. No. 286].
The cause for the arrests was a criminal complaint by Nelly Vick, the
widow of Patrice Vick, a Scientologist who had committed suicide in
1988 after having spent thousands of Francs for courses at the
Scientology center in Lyon.
What followed to these governmental measures was an extraordinary
attempt by senior officials of the "Church of Scientology
International," namely the "Commanding Officer of the "Office of
Special Affairs International" Kurt Weiland and his subordinates, to
infiltrate and manipulate the investigation of judge Fenech for the
benefit of the Scientology defendants. The OSA operation included the
hiring of an agent of the French intelligence service "Direction de la
Surveillance du Territoire" (DST) and the involvement of a personal
aide of the French President François Mitterand.
Apparently, immediately after the arrests in Paris, two officials of
OSA International, the Germans couple Edith and Klaus Büchele, flew to
France to initiate counter operations to revert the unfavorable
situation for Scientology in that country.
On July 8th Edith Büchele reported to the United States
OSA-headquarters about the initial procedures and operations of the
missionaries from Los Angeles which included the use of a secret agent
("F 10") who had access to then President Mitterand [Exh. No. 287]:
"The handling for all of this is covered in OT 11 [OT = `Operating
Target' of a program] and the details of that thing are covered in the
debrief of Klaus (Büchele) so I don't think I need to repeat it. This
is the area of F 10. Will meet him early tomorrow as well. As I
reported in yesterdays DR [DR = Daily Report] the summary report has
been delivered to President. F 10 will now go on the lines personally
on Monday and get it 8ced [8c = to control something] through. Meeting
held.
Instructions gotten back down the lines to the Ministry of
Justice level via the head of the Crim Division in the Ministry of
Justice to revert those directives issued on the parquets and instruct
them to lay off and cool it. This is the main action that has been
done. Legally there is not much we can do as we do not have copy of it
and thus no chance to attack it legally -- Working on getting the
written copy but until such time key actions are those laid out in OT
11 by F 10 as the way to get them to cool it on those lines. Chances
look very good as laid out in the debrief of Klaus due to the comm
lines that do exist. Also MoJ [MoJ = Ministry of Justice] is currently
under bypass by President so order would go direct to head of crim div
which is over all parquets. It's a straight line that works for us."
Two days later Büchele reported about the evidently positive outcome
of F 10's meeting with Mitterand and about certain instructions that
were issued to revert the judicial process and to bypass the Ministry
of Justice [Exh. No. 288]:
"OT 11 personal letter was received by terminal [terminal = person
assigned to a specific task]. Answer will be back tomorrow 10.00 am
with direct assistant of M [M = Mitterand] and F 10 has meeting with
the assistant at 10.00 am to go over the instructions she will have
received by then and their implementation he is very confident on this
cycle. He is going to debrief tomorrow where we are at."
Apparently Büchele had also received internal information about
on-goings within the French justice system through these contacts, as
she wrote on the same day in a message to CO OSA Int. Weiland [Exh.
No. 289]:
"Also got information today that JoI [JoI = Judge of Investigation]
Morachini prior to the Marseille raid sent a memo to Min of Justice
suggesting overall action and suggested that the only way to get at
Scn is via the money flows and accounting and concentrate on that. I
don't know more then [sic] this and need to track this down in Min of
Justice/ "
On July 20th Büchele was finally informed by her agent that Mitterand
had approved the proposed intervention [Exh. No. 290]:
"F 10 is back and talked to Dayan [,] personal aide for justice
matters to Mitterand. Message is that is going ok and green light
given. Did not want to say more over phone. Meeting with him tomorrow
at 10.30 am to fully prep him. He wants to be more prepped as has
meeting on Monday 10:30 am in Elysee on our cycle. I will attend
tomorrow meeting. Said has caught up with all details read all the
media and wants to go over media actions as well."
After having received such high-powered back-up, Büchele formulated a
"France Investigations Handling Program" with a series of legal
follow-up steps "to revert the situation by launching a full legal
offensive [Exh. No. 291]." Specifically the program stated about its
purposes:
"MAJOR TARGETS
"1. To get the Marseille, Lyon and Paris Scientologists freed.
"2. To get the Marseille and Lyon cases turned to other impartial
judges of instruction."
On this day the Scientologists began their media campaign against the
government proceedings with demonstrations and press conferences in
Paris and Lyon, claiming that Scientology was persecuted for its
religious beliefs.
Three years later Scientology's intelligence operations became public
through journalist Serge Faubert, who published first articles in a
periodical and then finally a book about the Lyon investigation and
its background [Exh. No. 292]. In his first major article of the
affair he revealed the name of one mole, who had spied for Scientology
in the French government at that time: Alain Brunet, then a technical
aide in the Ministry for Cultural Affairs, who reported to Eva
Lefèvre, a PR Officer at the French Office of Special Affairs [Exh.
No. 293].
Another three years later, during the eve of the Lyon-trial in 1996,
Faubert revealed another name of Scientology's agents within the
French government [Exh. No. 294]. Pierre-Yves Gilleron, during the
early 1990s an officer of the French intelligence service DST, had
been approached by OSA-member Pascal Parizot and was paid 150,000
Francs for initiating an investigation on judge Fenech. Indeed the
judge and the police confirmed to the media that Fenech had been
followed and investigated by the Scientologists and Gilleron.
Nevertheless judge tampering of the Scientologists did not help the
defendants at the trial, as Jean-Jacques Mazier and 15 other
defendants were found guilty for having committed fraud and sentenced
to prison terms and fines on November 22nd, 1996 [Exh. No. 295,
Excerpt]. The prison terms were later suspended by an appeals court in
1997, and the highest Criminal Court upheld the earlier convictions on
June 30th 1999 [Exh. No. 296].
The Marseille investigation ended for the French Scientologists
finally as well with a guilty verdict [Exh. No. 297]. Xavier Delamare,
the former director of the Marseille mission, and four other
defendants were found guilty for fraud and given prison sentences.
In its disregard for the French justice system, which had been already
proven through its intelligence operations in 1990, the Church of
Scientology condemned the verdicts as "politically motivated" and
"religious McCarthyism."
1 Jan 2003
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