From http://www.elpais.es/articulo.html?anchor=elpepisoc&xref=20010207elpepisoc_10&type=Tes&d_date=20010207 by way of http://babelfish.altavista.com/ with a little tweaking:
Judgment of the Church of the Cienciología begins without its world-wide leader U.S. Justice Department alleges that it has not been able to serve his subpoena Jose Antonio Hernandez | Madrid The judgment against 16 members of the Church of the Cienciología began yesterday in the Hearing of Madrid in spite of the absence of the main defendant and world-wide leader of this organization, Heber Jentzsch, resident of Los Angeles (United States). The court decided to judge the 16 criminals who attended, the majority members of Dianética and Narconón, and to hold another trial of Jentzsch if he ever returns to Spain.

The US Department of Justice sent a fax to the Hearing of Madrid indicating that it was unable to serve the subpoena upon Jentzsch.

The decision to go on with the trial was contested by the public prosecutor, who announced the possibility of appealing to the Supreme Court because he considers that Jentzsch (who faces possible sentences of a total of 56 years of jail for 12 crimes: injuries, illicit association, threats and fiscal fraud, among others) is a fundamental part of this trial. The 16 charged who appeared will be tried without their leader. Such was the morning session.

Today, the parties will raise their previous questions and soon the interrogations will begin. The public prosecutor imputes a ten of crimes to these 16 defendant, and demands for them 26 years of jail.

The Cienciología settled down in Spain in 1968 to expand the doctrine of its founder, Ronald Hubbard, and with the purpose of catching people with depresivos problems and of drug addiction to put under them expensive short courses with the promise to purify its spirits and to heal its evils, according to describes the public prosecutor in its writing of accusation, in which it erases to Cienciología of ' sectá.

The therapies, say the public prosecutor, caused serious mental upheavals to tens of people, but, accidentally, no of those supposed victims has been party to this trial.

-- tinmimus99@hotmail.com

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