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."