LYONS - A court yesterday sentenced the former head of the Church of Scientology in France to 18 months in jail for manslaughter and fraud in a case stemming from a follower's suicide.
After an eight day trial in October, the court handed down suspended sentences on 14 other defendants linked to the organisation on charges ranging from embezzlement to fraud, and acquitted eight others.
At the trial prosecutors sought to portray the organisation as an enterprise masquerading as a religion, whose chief function was to extort cash from the gullible using abusive high pressure techniques.