GRENOBLE, France -- A French appeals court acquitted a Swiss orchestra conductor Wednesday of charges of criminal involvement in a doomsday cult that lost scores of members in ritual killings in France, Switzerland and Canada.

The court in Grenoble upheld Michel Tabachnik's 2001 acquittal by a lower court.

The new trial produced no new evidence against Tabachnik for his alleged role in the Switzerland-based Order of the Solar Temple cult. Prosecutor Jean-Pierre Melendez did not request a prison term, citing "the difficulty in getting to the truth of Michel Tabachnik."

Tabachnik was accused of contributing to the deaths of members of the cult, which lost 68 members in mass suicides in Switzerland, Canada and France between 1994 and 1995, according to the prosecutor's office. He was suspected of close ties to the cult's leader, Joseph di Mambo, who died in the 1994 suicides.

In one of the killings, French police discovered the charred remains of 14 victims, including three children, in a forest clearing near Grenoble at the foot of the French Alps. The 14 bodies were arranged in a star formation, and two other bodies were found nearby.

Swiss authorities failed to establish any link between the cult and Tabachnik.

Tabachnik has maintained his innocence. In France he had been charged with criminal association, facing a maximum 10-year prison term.

Tabachnik, who studied under conductor Pierre Boulez and composer Iannis Xenakis, has led orchestras in France, Canada and in New York.

Full story: Swiss orchestra conductor acquitted in French sect killings trial

A Swiss orchestra conductor went on trial for the second time yesterday for his alleged role in a doomsday cult which lost dozens of members in ritual killings in Canada and Europe.

Michel Tabachnik, 61, a composer who has led major orchestras in Canada, Portugal and France, is accused of criminal association and contributing to the deaths of members of the Order of the Solar Temple - 14 of whom were found burnt and lying in a star formation in a clearing in the French Alps in 1995.

Mr Tabachnik was acquitted of the same charges in 2001, but French prosecutors appealed and a new trial began in Grenoble yesterday. The conductor, whose first wife died in one of the cult's ritual mass suicides, denies the charges and wept during his court appearance.

The apocalyptic cult was founded in the 1980s by a French Canadian, Joseph di Mambro, based on a mixture of medieval Templar beliefs and new age fantasy. Di Mambro courted wealthy followers, persuading them to give up large sums of money in the belief that they would become part of a small elite destined to be reborn on a star called Sirius.

Members were told they could only reach Sirius by "death voyages" or ritualised suicide. In 1994 and 1995, 68 were found dead in Switzerland, Canada and France in apparent mass suicides. Most of the bodies were found gassed or shot in two villages in Switzerland. One group was arranged in a star formation in a concealed chamber beneath a remote farmhouse in the village of Cheiry.

Later 16 bodies, including three children, were found in a clearing in the French Alps known as the Well of Hell. Fourteen had been shot in the head, laid out in a star and burnt. An investigating judge decided two cult leaders had killed the others and then themselves, but some relatives believe the perpetrators fled and were never caught.

Mr Tabachnik is accused of writing and distributed esoteric texts intended to incite members to believe their death would lead to redemption, so creating "a dynamic towards murder".

During his first trial, prosecutors said Mr Tabachnik had taken part in crucial meetings discussing the end of the cult's mission. Months later, the mass suicides took place. Mr Tabachnik denied culpability, saying he had "done nothing wrong" and had been manipulated by the cult's leaders. His lawyers said he was being used as a scapegoat by the justice system. Judges were unable to prove a link between the texts and the suicides.

This trial is expected to last two weeks.

Full story: Conductor on trial over cult killings in France, Switzerland and Canada

Grenoble, France — A Swiss orchestra conductor went on trial again Tuesday for his alleged role in a doomsday cult that lost scores of members in ritual deaths in France, Switzerland and Canada.

A French court acquitted Michel Tabachnik of "criminal association" in the case in 2001. Prosecutors appealed and, on Tuesday, an appeals court in Grenoble reopened the proceedings. The trial is expected to last two weeks.

Mr. Tabachnik is accused of contributing to the deaths of members of the Switzerland-based Order of the Solar Temple cult. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The criminal association charge carries a maximum 10-year prison term.

While the earlier trial attracted widespread attention, only a half-dozen people attended Tuesday's trial opening. The judge said several witnesses had ignored summons for the current proceedings.

The Order of the Solar Temple lost 69 members in mass suicides in Switzerland, Canada and France between 1994 and 1995, according to the prosecutor's office.

In 1994, the bodies of 48 Solar Temple members were found in a burned-out farmhouse and three chalets in Switzerland. The bodies of two cult members had been found a day earlier at a burned-out condominium north of Montreal, with three more bodies uncovered at the condo two days later.

In 1995, French police discovered the charred remains of 14 victims, including three children, in a forest clearing near Grenoble at the foot of the French Alps. The 14 bodies were arranged in a star formation. Two other bodies were found nearby.

Prosecutor Pierre-Marie Cuny accused Mr. Tabachnik of supporting the cult's leader Joseph di Mambo, who died in the 1994 mass suicide.

Swiss authorities failed to establish any link between the cult and Mr. Tabachnik, but a French investigating magistrate decided there was enough evidence to put the conductor on trial.

Mr. Tabachnik, who studied under conductor Pierre Boulez and composer Iannis Xenakis, has led the Philharmonic Orchestra of Lorraine, France, and orchestras in Canada and in New York.

Full story: Swiss conductor back on trial Solar Temple deaths

GRENOBLE, France - Franco-Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik is due to go back on trial in France on Tuesday, four years after he was acquitted of conspiring to brainwash 74 members of the Solar Temple doomsday cult into accepting death by occult ritual.

The 64-year-old musician is now being charged with "criminal conspiracy" in relation to 16 of those cult members, three of them children, whose charred bodies were discovered in the French Alps in 1995.

On June 25, 2001, French judges cleared Tabachnik of the brainwashing charges due to lack of evidence. But prosecutors, which had accused him of playing a key role in convincing cult members willingly to go to their deaths, lodged an appeal.

The new court case, in the southwestern city of Grenoble, was expected to last two weeks.

The Solar Temple gained worldwide notoriety between 1994 and 1997, when the burnt bodies of 74 of its members were found in remote woodland clearings in Switzerland, Canada and then France.

Several of the dead had been shot in the head or asphyxiated in what were apparently 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 Jo Di Mambro. The two men allegedly milked followers of their money and convinced them that they must die by burning in order to attain bliss in the afterworld.

During his trial in 2001, Tabachnik admitted to belonging to the Order of the Solar Temple.

But he denied charges that his writings -- inspired by a mixture of occult, New Age and Rosicrucian theories -- had prepared the way for the cult members' deaths.

Central to the prosecution's case in 2001 was the charge that Tabachnik had taken part in meetings of the Solar Temple, held in France in July and September 1994, at which he "announced the winding-up of the group and the conclusion of its mission".

The judges concluded Tabachnik could have made the announcement to help 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 because his own philosophy had evolved, as expressed in tracts he had written at the time, they ruled.

Born in Geneva in 1942, 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.

Full story: Doomsday cult leader Tabachnik back in court

On This Day in 1994:

The bodies of 48 cult members have been discovered by Swiss police following an apparent mass suicide.

Twenty-three of the bodies were found in a concealed chamber beneath a remote farmhouse in the village of Cheiry, 48 miles north-east of Geneva.

A further 25 bodies, including some children, were recovered in three burnt-out chalets in Granges-sur-Salvan, 47 miles east of Geneva, near the Italian border.

The deaths have been linked to the apocalyptical Order of the Solar Temple sect, which was founded in 1984 by Dr Luc Jouret and Joseph di Mambro.

The Order of the Solar Temple condones the mass stock-piling of weapons to prepare for the end of the world.

Just hours before the grisly discoveries in Switzerland, the bodies of two more people, also believed to be linked to the sect, were found in Quebec, Canada, in a burnt-out apartment owned by Dr Jouret.

It is not known yet whether either of the cult leaders are among the dead, but the Swiss authorities have said they are searching for two people in connection with the deaths.

Gunshot wounds

In Cheiry, emergency services were called to the farmhouse after locals reported a fire.

Initially they only discovered the body of the farm's owner, 73-year-old Alberto Giacobino, who was lying dead on a bed with a plastic bag over his head. He had also been shot.

The concealed chamber, covered in mirrors, was discovered during a search of the property for further bodies.

Many of the bodies were found with gunshot wounds and plastic bags over their heads. Others were found clasping their hands in prayer. Most of the bodies were clad in ceremonial robes.

According to rescuers, champagne bottles littered the floor and the victims were lying in a star formation.

On a make-shift altar within the chamber there was a rose, a cross and a picture of Mr Jouret. The sect's motto is "Rose Eternal Cross."

Plastic bags of petrol and gas cylinders wired up to explode by a telephone signal were found although the system had failed to work. It is thought a second fire was started manually elsewhere in the building.

A similar timer device had also been rigged up in Granges-sur-Salvan. However, it is thought the dead may have been drugged or poisoned before the fires began.

Local people in both idyllic villages had no idea that cult members had been living in their midst and have been left shocked by the events of the past 24 hours.

Similarities are being made to events in Jonestown in Guyana in 1978 when 914 people led by the Reverend Jim Jones, committed suicide in a jungle clearing.

And just last year in Waco, Texas 80 members of the Branch Davidian sect, led by David Koresh, died after fire broke out during a siege.

Sidebar:

In Context
It was revealed following the mass suicides that the Order of the Solar Temple sect owned extensive property in Switzerland, Canada and France and was heavily involved in money laundering and arms trafficking.

International arrest warrants were issued for Luc Jouret and Joseph di Mambro who were suspected of mass murder, but their bodies were eventually discovered among the dead in Switzerland.

Two days after the Swiss suicides the bodies of Antonio and Nikki Dutoit and their three-month old son, Christopher, were found murdered in their home at Morin Heights, Quebec. The couple had left the Order of the Solar Temple sect three years previously but possibly "knew too much."

In December 1995 16 members of the sect were found dead in France and in March 1997 five more died in Quebec.

In 2001, Michel Tabachnik, a former conductor with the Canadian Opera Company, was cleared of contributing to the 74 deaths of the members of the Order of the Solar Temple between 1994 and 1997.

Full story: Oct. 5, 1994: Cult members die in ‘mass suicide’

GRENOBLE, France (AP) - A French prosecutor's office rejected a request to reopen an investigation into the 1995 murder-suicide of 16 members of the Order of the Solar Temple doomsday group, a lawyer said Thursday.

The Grenoble prosecutor's office said there was no new evidence to justify reopening the inquiry, said Alain Leclerc, a lawyer who had made the request on behalf of the families of some of the victims.

In 1995, French police discovered the charred remains of 14 victims, including three children, in a forest clearing near Grenoble in the French Alps. The 14 bodies were arranged in a star formation. Two other bodies were found nearby.

The victims included Patrick Vuarnet, a son of Olympic ski champion and sunglasses tycoon Jean Vuarnet; his girlfriend and their child.

Investigators said police officer Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and Swiss architect Andre Friedli fatally shot the others, doused the bodies with gasoline and set them afire before killing themselves. Autopsies showed that most had taken sleep-inducing drugs.

The Vuarnets, who were among family members that wanted the investigation reopened, believe that someone from outside the group was responsible for the deaths. It recently commissioned a private report that it claims is proof the bodies were burned with a flame-thrower.

Alain Vuarnet, whose mother and brother were among the victims, said he regretted the decision by the prosecutor's office, saying it "didn't want to look into a different version of the events that has never been the subject of a deeper investigation."

The Order of the Solar Temple lost 58 members in mass suicides in Switzerland and Quebec between 1994 and 1997.

Full story: French prosecutor refuses to reopen probe into Solar Temple cult deaths

GRENOBLE, France (Reuters) - A fresh legal bid to convict a Swiss orchestra conductor of involvement in the ritualistic deaths of 16 cult members in 1995 has been adjourned by a French court.

Michel Tabachnik was cleared in June 2001 after judges ruled there was insufficient evidence he helped set up the suicides of 16 followers of the Order of the Solar Temple sect, but victims' families appealed against his acquittal.

The Solar Temple gained worldwide notoriety after 74 of its members were found dead in woods in France, Switzerland and Canada between 1994 and 1997.

The dead were mostly shot or asphyxiated in what were apparently either ritual murders or mass suicides. Among the dead were the sect's founders, who were accused of milking money from members and convincing them they must die in a fire to attain bliss in the afterworld.

The Grenoble appeals court on Monday adjourned the case until next June because two experts hired for the inquiry into sect have been put under investigation for leaking information.

"We agree to a postponement of the hearing in the interests of a proper treatment of the file and for the clarity of the debates," judge Jacques Buisson told the court.

Separately, the prosecution counsel said it was up to the Grenoble public prosecutor to answer a request for new evidence to be examined suggesting the 1995 deaths of the 16 cult members may not have been suicide.

Last week, the son of a couple who were among the dead, said a forensic expert had found traces of phosphorus in his parents' exhumed bodies, suggesting a flame-thrower had been used on them.

Tabachnik, who was in court, maintained his innocence and said he was in "total ignorance" about the fate of the 16 sect members, who included three children. He has admitted he once had links to the cult.

Lawyers for the victims' families say the 16 were killed and set on fire by other Solar Temple members who fled.

The charred bodies were found, laid out in a star pattern, in a remote Alpine forest.

Full story: French sect deaths case delayed

GRENOBLE, France, Sept 22 (AFP) - A French court Monday delayed until June the trial on appeal of a Franco-Swiss conductor, Michel Tabachnik, suspected of helping to brainwash 74 members of the Solar Temple doomsday cult who died in the 1990s.

The second trial of Tabachnik, 60, which was due to start Monday, was brought by prosecutors who appealed his acquittal in an earlier trial in June 2001.

It was delayed Monday to June 14 at the request of two lawyers for some of the dead members' families, as a criminal investigation has been launched against the main psychiatric expert in the case for allegedly violating client-lawyer and client-doctor privileges.

Tabachnik is suspected of contributing to the deaths between 1994-1997 of 74 members of the cult whose burned bodies were found in isloated woodland clearings in France, Switzerland and Canada.

Several of the dead were shot or asphyxiated in what were apparently ritual murders, although some are thought to have been willing participants in mass suicides.

Tabachnik, a former conductor of orchestras in France, Canada and New York has denied the charges and the first case against him collapsed because of lack of evidence.

During that trial, he told the court that he had been drawn into the cult by its charismatic guru, Joseph di Mambro, and its esoteric philosophy, part of which convinced followers that they must die in a blaze to attain bliss in the afterworld.

Among the dead were the two founders of the sect, Luc Jouret and Di Mambro.

Full story: Solar Temple cult re-trial postponed

Excerpt from report by French Europe 1 radio on 19 September

[Presenter] We have a very moving account, as you will hear, from Alain Vuarnet, whose brother and mother were among the victims of the Order of the Solar Temple [who died in the Vercors mountains, in the Isere department of eastern France in a reported sect group suicide in December 1995]. [On 22nd September one of the alleged Solar Temple leaders is due to appear in court in Grenoble for an appeal hearing] The Vuarnet family have had fresh tests carried out and say they are convinced that it was murder. The bodies are reported to have been torched with a flame-thrower. Our correspondent in Lyon, Nicolas Fauroux [phonetic], recorded the account:

[Vuarnet] We had my mother and my little brother exhumed on 4 July. It was a very painful decision. Today I am in a position to give you the results - we have found large quantities of phosphorous in the various samples which were taken from the bodies of my mother and my little brother. This amounts to over - [changes thought] between 21 and 31 per cent, depending on the sample.

This explains a good many things - first of all phosphorous must be used, let me say, with a mixture of fuels - and at that point, when you have made this mixture, you can only use it with a flame- thrower.

Today we bring a fresh aspect to this appeal hearing which scientifically demonstrates that there was outside intervention, for the simple reason that the police didn't find any such flame- thrower on the spot or any other tool of this kind.

[passage omitted]

Let me tell you, I am sick of the judicial system forcing us to do such terrible things as exhuming my mother and my little brother - it still gives me goose pimples thinking about it - and I am really angry with the judicial system for driving me to do this kind of thing. It is not for me to do it. In any case, as far as I am concerned, I really don't know what more I can do.

[passage omitted]

Full story: French sect deaths relative speaks of new evidence, slams judicial inaction

Switzerland: Firefighters find 23 bodies in a remote farmhouse and 25 more in three Alps chalets. Victims were apparently members of a sect led by a fugitive Canadian.

Volunteer firefighters responding to a farmhouse fire in this tiny village early Wednesday uncovered an underground chapel and the robe-clad bodies of 23 people, members of an obscure cult joined in an apparent murder-suicide by 25 other adherents in three chalets 100 miles away.

The 48 grisly deaths were caused variously by suffocation, gunshots and perhaps drug overdoses, police said. The victims included French, Swiss and Canadian citizens, ranging in age from 10 to 73. Some died with their hands clasped in prayer.

Authorities believe the deaths may be connected to similar deaths in Canada on Tuesday.

In Cheiry, 19 of the victims were found in one 30-yard-long room hidden beneath a secret door under a carpet in the garage. On the wall was a drawing of a bearded man, a "Jesus Christ-like figure," as one official described it, wearing a cape and carrying a rose. On a makeshift altar were the French words for "the cross and rose," which authorities believe is the name of a doomsday sect based in the Canadian province of Quebec.

"It was as if we were entering a wax museum," said Andre Piller, the Swiss prosecutor investigating the massacre here. "Everything was peaceful, and the people looked passive. It was very horrifying."

Most of the victims here had been shot once or twice in the head, and 10 had plastic bags cinched over their heads as well. Police said they found 52 casings at the scene from a .22-caliber rifle. The victims were lying on their backs in a circle. Most were wearing what the police said were ritual robes of white and red, white reportedly being the lowest rank in the order. One man, whom police described as a "grand master" of the sect, wore a black robe.

"There was blood everywhere," said Pierre Torche, 35, the town mayor and one of the first firefighters to discover the bodies. "It was a bizarre sight."

In two other rooms of the house, police and firefighters found four other victims, including a 10-year-old boy, who had been shot in the head. A woman, possibly the boy's mother, lay dead next to him.

The owner of the farmhouse, identified as Alberto Giacomino, 73, was found on his bed, with gunshot wounds and a plastic bag over his head. In addition to the boy, the victims included 10 men, one 18 years old, and 12 women.

Members of the sect evidently intended to disappear in a fireball. Throughout the house, located about 40 miles northeast of Geneva, authorities found plastic bags filled with gasoline and bottles filled with propane gas. Some were hooked up to timing devices and telephone lines, apparently so they could be detonated by a phone call.

Only a few of the devices worked, however, and none of the victims in Cheiry was burned, police said.

"We're still reeling from what we found," Piller told a late-night news conference. "We have no indication why they chose this day for their mass suicide. At the moment, we have no idea why these people died. We aren't even sure whether it's a homicide or a suicide yet."

An audiocassette tape found at the scene contained remarks about astrology, the police said, but it gave no reasons for the deaths.

About the same time that firefighters were making their discovery here, fires broke out in three ski chalets in the Swiss Alps, near Granges-sur-Salvan. A total of 25 bodies were pulled from those smoldering chalets Wednesday. There were no signs of violence in those deaths; most of the victims appeared to have died before the fires, perhaps having been poisoned or drugged, police said.

Investigators linked the two events when they found cars from Cheiry at the Alps massacre site. And two of the chalets were owned by Luc Jouret, 46, said by authorities and cult experts to be the leader of two related extremist sects: the Cross and Rose and the Order of the Solar Temple. Literature for the Cross and Rose was found in the Cheiry farmhouse along with other religious artifacts, police said.

Although all the victims in Switzerland have not been identified, authorities said that Jouret, who once described himself as "the new Christ," did not appear to be among them.

Authorities were investigating links to the sect in Quebec, where an arson fire in a duplex next to one owned by Jouret left two people dead Tuesday morning.

Those victims, a man and a woman, were not yet identified. But police said they believed they were members of the cult.

"We found medallions around their necks with the inscription T and S, which could stand for Temple Soleil," Michel Brunet, a spokesman for the provincial police, said. Temple Soleil is the French translation of Solar Temple.

Brunet also said the Canadian fire, on a mountainside in the town of Morin Heights about 50 miles north of Montreal, was caused by the same type of explosive device blamed in Switzerland--five gas tanks linked to each other with wires and timers.

Quebec police have long had the Solar Temple cult under investigation. Police arrested several members last year and charged them with illegal possession of weapons.

Jouret reportedly fled from Canada to Switzerland in 1993, when Canadian authorities issued a nationwide arrest warrant charging him with weapons possession and conspiracy.

Montreal Crown Prosecutor Jean-Claude Boyer, who worked on the arms case, said members of Solar Temple "saw themselves as superior human beings whose survival was needed to relaunch the human race after a cataclysm they saw coming because of the deterioration in world affairs."

But Boyer said Jouret and his associates "looked like businessmen; there was nothing crazy about them."

On Wednesday, the two-story farmhouse in Cheiry was blackened and smoldering. On a table inside in a room undamaged by fire was a red rose in a vase. The shells of two burned cars and a tractor were in the barn.

The tranquil, picturesque town of 230 inhabitants was shocked by the deaths but even more astonished that a cult could be operating in the prominent hillside home without being noticed.

Giacomino bought the farmhouse four years ago and lived there with four other people, residents said. Torche, the mayor, said the property had been purchased by a company that wanted to do "biological cultivation" research and had chosen the spot because it received more sun than houses nearer the town center in the valley.

Many in town remembered seeing the owner buying cigarettes at the cafe or stocking up on building supplies that he said were being used to renovate the farmhouse.

"We didn't know him well," said one neighbor. "But he seemed OK, just a nice old guy."

"I didn't find anything strange about the fact that they kept to themselves," said Torche, the soot from the fire still clinging to his gray fireman's jumpsuit 12 hours later. "A lot of people up here do.

Swiss authorities surmise that the house was a meeting place for the sect.

When the firefighters first arrived at the house, shortly after midnight, they battled the blaze for nearly four hours. Then, joined by the police, they searched for what they thought would be just the residents, starting in the woods and moving into the living quarters.

It was only after finding four victims in the house that they discovered the door leading to the windowless underground chapel.

"It was frightful," said Beat Karlen, a spokesman for the police. "When you enter into a place like that, where you find so many bodies, it's atrocious. Just atrocious."

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler in Montreal contributed to this report.

Full story: 48 Die in Cult Murder-Suicide