Paris - A Paris court Tuesday found the Church of Scientology guilty of fraud and imposed fines totalling 600,000 euros (892,000 dollars). In addition, the founder to the French arm of the worldwide group, Alain Rosenberg, was handed a suspended sentence of two years in prison and fined 30,000 euros.
In his closing argument, the public prosecutor had asked for fines totalling 2 million euros and demanded that the self-styled church be dissolved. However, an amended law, passed unnoticed by Parliament last year, made this impossible.
The controversial paragraph forbids the dissolution of any legal entity convicted of fraud and was included in a broad bill aimed at simplifying laws and legal procedures that was passed in July 2008, just days before the trial began.
The change in the law, which seemed tailor-made for the Church of Scientology, was not discovered until September of this year, more than one year later. It was quickly amended, but too late to influence sentencing in the case.
Everyone involved in the law change claimed that it occurred by mistake, with one administrator on the National Assembly`s Law Committee recently telling the daily Le Parisien that it was "an unfortunate cut-and-paste error."
But the plaintiffs and many anti-sect activists charge that the Parliament was infiltrated by Scientologists, who secretly manipulated the law.
"Several days before the opening arguments (in the case), the law was intentionally changed," said an attorney for the plaintiffs, Olivier Morice, who said he was "scandalized."
The weekly Le Point reported last week that lawyers for the Scientologists were apparently aware of the change in the law before anyone else.
According to the report, an American attorney for the group informed a journalist about it in July, some two months before it came to light in France.
The case was based on complaints filed by two women in December 1998 and July 1999.
One of the plaintiffs spent the equivalent of more than 20,000 euros on various courses and products the church offers to its adherents. The second plaintiff said she was forced by her boss, a Scientologist, to take part in a church course before being fired.
