Diese Woche pausiert das Verfahren und gibt Jonny Jacobsen die Möglichkeit, die weiteren Prozesstage der vergangenen Woche aufzuarbeiten. In insgesamt drei Blog berichtet er über den zweiten Tag aus dem Gerichtssaal – akribisch wie immer:
The International Association of Scientologists supports Scientology’s good works around the world, a defendant told the Belgian trial of the Church.
At the beginning of Tuesday’s proceedings, three people stepped forward in a bid to become plaintiffs in the case.
They were two former members of Scientology, John Duignan and Samantha Domingo; and Victoria Britton, from the United States, who explained that she had lost her son in tragic circumstances. All three felt they had information that would be useful to the court.
Judge Yves Régimont, after having established that none of them had been personally affected by the Church of Scientology in Belgium or any of the individual defendants, said he was obliged to refuse them. While their information might have been pertinent during the investigation, the stories they had to tell did not fit the framework of the current trial, he explained.
There was no word, meanwhile, of another man who had turned up a day earlier at the start of the trial to register as a plaintiff: he had been advised to find a lawyer.
For the moment then, there are no plaintiffs attached to the case. What appears to have once been a long list has dwindled to nothing after they either settled their grievances with Scientology or withdrew of their own accord.
But that does not mean that the prosecutors have to discard the stories they told investigators. They still form part of the case files, and as the judge confronted the defendants with those events that concerned them, the court got glimpses of those stories.
The third of the defendants, Hilde N.*, was called to the stand, one of two defendants following proceedings via the simultaneous translation of Flemish interpreters. With other interpreters assisting two defendants with English translations, the proceedings were accompanied by a steady background whisper in the different languages.
Judge Régimont started by asking the defendant to explain how she had got involved in Scientology.
“I worked in a computer company and they sent us to follow courses and that is when I got to know a Scientologist,“ she explained. The woman had been a member a long time and they became friends.
“I admired her attitude to life; the way she faced up to things in life,” she said. She herself had been raised a Catholic, but it was not always easy to respect their rules, she said: translating Catholic values to modern life was no easy task.
“I read several [Scientology] books on how to lead a happy life and that interested me enormously, so she took me to a conference at the Church,” she continued. “And there, I found an approach that suited me better than my Catholic upbringing.
“So I signed up for two basic courses: Overcoming Ups and Downs in Life and How to Raise Your Integrity,” she said. These basic courses gave her what she needed to decide whether or not Scientology was for her.
She decided it was: because while she was young, had a good job and plenty of friends, she still felt that there was something richer in life, something deeper, that she was missing.
And when was this, the judge asked: 1993. And had she been audited? Yes, she had. And while you were doing the auditing courses, were you advised to go further? No, said Hilde, it was me who decided to go further.
“Scientology contains an enormous amount of things, but Mr. Hubbard, in his Bridge to Total Freedom, said that you should take little steps if you really want to advance in this spiritual voyage.”
“Once you have reached a level of superior awareness, you start to take care of things that happen in the world around you.”
It wasn’t until 1999 that she signed up on staff for four years because they had urgent need of a Flemish speaker.
Four years? asked the judge. Not two-and-a-half or five, which he had understood to be the standard terms? That was true, she said: but towards the end of her contract she had had to withdraw because of health problems.
While on staff, she said, she was out at a lot of book fairs and conferences, informing people about Scientology. She and her colleagues had also organised a big Scientology exhibition where they got to show the Church’s activities.
“And in the Church itself I was on reception and did guided tours and I took care of organising Sunday services and monthly festivals, because in Scientology, there are quite a lot of those. And that is what I did in the first year.”
Then at some point, the president and director of the church, Vincent G. resigned. His designated replacement was not yet trained up for the job, so she stepped in as president and director of the Church of Scientology Belgium, for what was meant to be an interim period.
“My intention was only to be there for a few months, but in the end I was there for a year,” she said. But because of the workload she already had, she was supported by three assistants who helped and advised her. After that year, she stepped down to a lesser role.
Having left staff, from around about late 2003 she became active member, attending festivals and every two years going to the centre at Copenhagen or over to Los Angeles for advanced courses.
And how much had she spent on Scientology over the years? the judge asked. Around 40,000 euros, which over a period of 20 years came to around 2,000 a year, said Hilde. And in the years she was on staff she had received courses and auditing for free.
And did that sum include the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) payments? No, she said: the sum she had mentioned was what she had paid for religious services, auditing and Scientology materials such as Hubbard’s writings.
Judge Régimont wanted to know more about the IAS. Hilde explained it was an organisation of members dedicated to raising money to help the Church pursue its religious programmes.
“Once you have reached a level of superior awareness, you start to take care of things that happen in the world around you,” she explained.
The IAS was a non-profit, and the money it received was used to sponsor socially useful programmes: anti-drug campaigns, supporting human rights and action to combat illiteracy.
“What is important for me is to be able to contribute to the humanitarian works that the IAS does.”
“And how much did you invest in the IAS?” the judge asked. Around 25,000 euros over 20 years, Hilde replied.
But that was back in 1993, when she was already listed as a Patron of the IAS in Church publications, said the judge. “And you get to be a Patron of the IAS from which point?” he asked.
There were different levels of membership, she said: you could be a member for free for six months; and you could be a Life Patron for $20,000.
But she had paid $5,000 more than that, the judge noted. And that was only up to 1999. At that time, she said, she and Vincent G. were together, so they were listed as a couple. but they later separated.
“So you are no longer a Patron?” asked the judge. That struck Judge Régimont as a little unfair. “You should make a claim about that,” he suggested.
Hilde demurred. “What is important for me is to be able to contribute to the humanitarian works that the IAS does.”
The judge wanted to know whether Hilde had held the posts of director of the Church of Scientology Belgium and religious director in the Scientology Org chart. The first post is one of the legal requirements for running a non-profit in Belgium (Association Sans But Lucratif, ASBL); the second is one of the positions set out in the administrative structure devised by Hubbard, which all churches are required to follow.
Hilde replied that it was often the case that one person held both posts and she had too: on top of that, she had also been responsible for public relations. Her exceptional workload was one of the reasons she had three people helping her with her duties.
So when she was director, how did that work? The day before, Vincent G. had said that when he was in the post of president he had simply applied the writings of the founder, L. Ron Hubbard: he had not, he said, been receiving “mystical orders” from Los Angeles.
Hilde explained that at the time they had been a very small team “…and not everyone was always there. But I had a lot of people helping me.”
“The decisions you took, did you take them alone, or not?” the judge asked.
“All the decisions I took were always taken in consultation with my colleagues,” she replied.
“Who, precisely?”
That depended on what was being decided, said Hilde. “If it was a little decision — who took care of reception, or cleaned the hallway — that was a decision taken by a few people. And for more important decisions, such as paying the bills, there were my three advisors.”
Then Judge Vérimont turned to the heart of the case as it concerned her.
—
Day Two of the Belgian trial of Scientology: the judge questioned one defendant closely about the highly personal information investigators had found in members’ files.
Having listened to the defendant Hilde N.* outline her progress through Scientology during her 22 years with the Church, Judge Vérimont turned to the heart of the case, as it concerned her. She was accused of violating the rules regarding Belgium’s privacy laws. Did she have anything she wanted to say to that?
There was no data gathered or recorded, said Hilde.
“Quand même!” the judge exclaimed: clearly he did not agree. There were the Preclear (PC), files, the Life Histories – and investigators had also found sensitive information in computer files, he said.
Preclear files contain the notes taken by Scientology’s auditors, or counsellors, during their auditing sessions with other Scientologists. Their contents often contain the kind of deeply personal information one might find in a therapist’s notes (or, to use an analogy that Scientologists would doubtless prefer, the kind of thing a Catholic priest might hear during confession). Life histories can also contain the intimate details of a Scientologist’s private life.
Hilde explained that she was not an auditor – the kind of Scientologist who dealt with such files – but she had read the writings of Mr. Hubbard about how to arrive at a higher religious awareness.
But the judge was more concerned with whether Belgium’s privacy laws had been breached. “So if Mr. Hubbard says in one of his books … that things should be done in one way, then never mind what the law in a particular country says, is that it?”
“I think the Church way is that everything is done respecting the law,” she replied.
The judge reminded her that investigators had seized masses of documents during their searches of the Scientology offices and found private information on Scientologists both in the physical documents and in computer files. “So for you everything was in accordance with Belgian law?”
She mentioned another defendant, Myriam Z., saying that she had worked with specialist lawyers at the time to ensure that everything was in order. “For my part,” she added, “I have full confidence that everything was done according to the rules – and I should say that the Preclear files are written down and there is only one computer for mailings.”
Preclear files, she explained, were for the auditing notes: the things people had confided during the sessions. “I myself have never been an auditor but I have often been audited.” She could assure the judge that these people were professionals. She was quite comfortable confiding her intimate secrets to them and she had full confidence in the support the auditor provided.
It was nevertheless astonishing, said Judge Régimont, that the Church of Scientology seemed, in 1999-2000 to be completely ignorant of privacy laws passed back in 1992.
And what she was saying now was not quite what she had told investigators back in November 2002, he added. Back then she had said that, so far as the collection of legal, medical and sexual information on members was concerned, it had never been the aim to gather them for the Church. So that rather suggested that data was indeed being collected.
Hilde suggested that Myriam Z. might be better able to explain the system that had been put in place. But in any case, she wasn’t sure she saw the problem: given the nature of auditing after all, everyone knew what was in their file.
In auditing, as she had experienced it, she explained, “…if there is a good contact between the auditor and the person being audited, I can tell details of my private life, sexual life and my concept of life and the auditor can know it but I know what he knows because it was me myself who told him and it was with the aim of advancing spiritually.”
Obviously then, she knew the contents of her PC folder because it was what she had told her auditor, she said. But, she added: “I only told him what I wanted to tell him.”
“What you want to tell or what he wants you to, to reach a spiritual level?” asked the judge.
“When you start in Scientology, they tell you in advance how things are done, the how and the why of things,” she replied. “And I know that when I start an auditing session the auditor will put a number of questions and it is for me to answer or not answer.
“When the auditor puts these questions, it is most of all to help you understand yourself better and to help you find your own answers. Scientology is there to help people – and you can always help people. You can give someone who is hungry a fish, or you can teach them to fish,” she added.
“That’s Catholicism!” said the judge, to laughter.
“I’m not sure about that – because the court has to look at your credibility,” said the judge.
Did Scientologists use consent forms? he asked. Without doubt yes, replied Hilde – and in case of need there was a witness. And nobody was forced to go further than they wanted to. “I also have friends who have shown some interest, but have said they didn’t want to be audited and so they have done a book or a course,” she added.
Then Judge Régimont got down to specifics. Did she know of the BZ family? This would have been between 2000 and 2003, he said. She said she did remember them and recalled they had been Scientologists for years.
One of the family’s children, it seemed had wanted to take the Personality Test at a time when she was minor. Hilde it seemed, had had her sit the test: but since the girl concerned was still a child, by law, this required the prior consent of the parents.
Hilde said she had no memory of the incident with the Personality Test, but if a minor had taken the Personality Test then it would have been with the consent of the parents.
She also wanted to add that the family concerned were French-speakers, while she herself was a Flemish-speaker, which meant she would not have been dealing with them. “So it was not me. It was another Hilde.”
And the person who had shown the girl one of the introductory films at the centre, the judge asked: that wasn’t her either? At the time, she said, she did not speak enough French to be able to deal with a French-speaking family, she said. She named another colleague who would have taken care of them.
“The father and the mother and the brother did courses with us,” she recalled. In the meantime, the youngest, a girl, was getting bored. “I remember she helped us put mailings in an envelope and then she asked to see a film, because she was bored.”
“That is not what you said at the time,” said Judge Régimont. Years earlier, when she had been questioned by investigators, she had given a more detailed explanation of how one of the sons had seen a film on Dianetics, become interested and come to her to ask about details; and that she had started him on it after getting the consent of his parents.
“Now, for someone who didn’t speak French, that is a fairly detailed statement,” the judge remarked.
What the judge had to bear in mind, she said, was that between Scientologists a lot of the communication was done in English. But in any case, she said, the incidents in question dated back more than 13 years, so she could not remember in which language she had spoken to them, English or French.
“I’m not sure about that – because the court has to look at your credibility,” said the judge.
“The declaration dates to 2006,” said Hilde. “The events date to even further back. I saw these people at the Church and I perhaps spoke to these people but I certainly didn’t actively take care of these people.”
So the facts alleged against her as the prosecution had laid them out: so far as she had concerned, this was pure fantasy, nothing to do with what happened?
“Monsieur Le Président, as a good citizen and a good Scientologist, if I committed a fault I want to assume my criminal responsibility. But in my soul and in all good conscience, as a Scientologist I have always tried to be a good person and I will continue to do so.
“Scientology has been enriching for me. I have become a better and more complete person: and the only thing I wanted to do was to transmit that to other people.”
After a 10-minute break, it was the turn of the prosecutor, Christophe Caliman to put his questions.
—
Day Two of the Belgian Scientology trial. Defence lawyers clashed with the prosecutor as he read from Scientology policy letters relating to its disciplinary system
There were two state prosecutors at the trial of Scientology: Christophe Caliman, who had followed the investigation for more than a decade; and Jean-Pascal Thoreau, who as well as handling high-profile cases in also acts a media spokesman for the federal prosecutors office. So far, Caliman had taken the lead and he did so again with defendant Hilde N.*
Investigators had established that Hilde, as a Field Staff Member (FSM), had been receiving a 15-percent commission for the courses and materials that she had sold. Caliman asked her about the difference between a staff member and a Field Staff Member.
Not every Scientologist could make the commitment to be a staff member, as she had for a few years, said Hilde. But if you did want to spread the word about Scientology, you could sell Hubbard’s books and other materials to friends and family. “Mr. Ron Hubbard developed a system to reward people like that.”
Once she had completed her commitments as a member of staff, she became a Field Staff Member, “as anyone who wants to be can be,” she said.
In fact, when she herself had first got into Scientology, it had been via a Field Staff Member: the woman she had mentioned earlier in her testimony, the one she had met on the training course. It was she who had sold her her first books and training courses, she said.
Over the years, this woman had accompanied her during her progress in Scientology because that was also their role: it was a kind of “buddy” system, in which the more experienced Scientologist gave her protégé the benefit of her experience.
Earlier, said Caliman, she had spoken of consent forms. Why were they required? Hilde said she did not understand the question, so the prosecutor tried again.
“Why does the Church of Scientology seek the consent of persons and in what context?” he asked. Judge Régimont stepped in: this was a reference to the consent forms that members signed relating to the data gathered during auditing sessions. “Why do you sign consent forms?”
“I have to think,” she replied. “It’s been a long time.” Most of all, she said, it was to inform people. She mentioned her fellow defendant, Myriam Z, again. Her introduction of consent forms was one of the changes she had made to bring the situation into conformity with the law, acting on the advice of a team of lawyers
“We made sure that before people received religious courses, they had to know what they were getting and what their rights were, and it is normal that people know this,” she said.
The prosecutor continued: the defendant had said that people came to be helped, and that she herself had been helped; that everything was done on a voluntary basis and that one could accept or refuse auditing, as one wished. “Does Madame confirm this?”
It was a question of context, said Hilde. Auditing was for the benefit of the person being audited; it was not about collecting data, she said. So if she was being audited, it was not about the auditor wanting to learn things about her; it was her wanting to have a chance of seeing things in a different way.
But the prosecutor was not satisfied. “My question is not to know the aims of auditing, but if a person can refuse it. Yes or no?”
Her response was still not to the point, so the judge stepped in again. The auditor – “Excuse me,” he said, correcting himself – the prosecutor was asking a fairly clear question. “Can a person in auditing say ‘I am not answering that question’. Yes or no? I think the question is clear so I think the answer should be.”
“Yes,” said Hilde. “A person can say ‘No, I am not answering that question’.”
“Without being punished?” asked the prosecutor.
“That I don’t know,” she answered: she was not qualified in that area.
“Déloyale!” a defence lawyer protested.
The prosecutor Caliman, referring to a document, quoted a Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter (HCOPL), one of those that Scientology’s founder Hubbard had written setting out punishments for offences committed within the Church.
Listed as a minor offence was refusal to tell your “overts” (things you had done wrong). And anyone who refused to confess, Hubbard had written, should be put in the hands of an ethics officer. In Scientology, ethics officers ensure that Hubbard’s rules are followed.
Caliman read out a series of numbers, the box and file references for this particular document, but there was consternation among the defence lawyers. There were mutterings of “Déloyale!” (unfair) and more than one lawyer stepped forward, in a bid to address the court.
One lawyer protested that this document, from the prosecutor’s vast stock of paperwork, had nothing to do with this particular defendant. His point seemed to be that two separate criminal investigations had been merged into the single trial: but this document appeared to be from the part that did not concern Hilde N.
Maître Pierre Monville stood up to express what a number of his colleagues on the defence side seemed to think. “The lawyers in the Cause Two are not concerned by the elements of Cause One,” he said.
This was déloyale, unfair, on the part of the prosecutor, he added, and he was giving fair warning that it was délicat – tricky – to rely on documents from one side of the case to prosecute the other. Neither the defence lawyers concerned, nor indeed their clients, had had sight of them. “And if he raises this in his closing argument, it is a problem.”
Judge Régimont intervened. He thought that the prosecutor had referred to this in another document that concerned Me. Monville’s case papers. He nevertheless noted the objection, without ruling one way or another. But it was clear to him, he added, that a defendant could not answer to something in the part of the case that did not concern them.
Judge Régimont dictated one of his regular memos to the court clerk to the effect that the defence formally objected to the document being attached to the file. “It is not as if he came to court with a document that is not known,” he added. But the defence position was that this document had no standing in this context. “I understand your reaction,” he told the defence lawyers. The defendant, Hilde N., could not be pulled into the other half of the case.
The defence had just fired a shot across bow of the prosecutor, warning him that they would attack him on procedural grounds if he tried to use this document against this client. Caliman was unrepentant. He had produced the text for the convenience of everyone, he said, waving it at them.
“Déloyale!” protested a defence lawyer.
He may only have quoted extracts of these documents, he said, but these texts existed and many of them appeared in Hubbard’s book Introduction to Scientology Ethics. The text was among the documents seized by investigators and had been entered into the record: “And this is what Scientologists spend their lives studying,” he added.
There were several more minutes of back and forth with that, as Me. Monville, for the defence, suggested, with the greatest possible respect of course, that Monsieur Le Procureur was trying to pull a fast one. It was not acceptable for the prosecutor to cherry-pick passages from Hubbard’s writings (in what was already a massive file) and try to impose his interpretation of what had been written.
“My aim is not to ambush the defence,” said the prosecutor.
This was an issue that affected all the defendants, he warned: the prosecution should take heed of their formal objection. And if he was going to quote any more such passages, the defence should be given the full references in advance.
Caliman raised his hands, almost as if to show he had nothing up the sleeves of his legal robes: “I have no problem with that,” he said. “My aim is not to ambush the defence.”
“I’m sure the defence will be putting its side,” said Judge Régimont. But again, he took note of the objections.
The message was clear on both sides: the prosecution would be making full use of the Hubbard letters that Hubbard had written and which had been seized during the police raids of Scientology offices. For him and his colleague Thoreau, these documents told a different story to the one the defendants had so far advanced.
For its part, the defence would be formally objecting to any attempt to bring documents from one half of the investigation over to the other as that would prejudice the right of their clients to a fair trial; and they would challenge any partial interpretation of Hubbard’s writings advanced by the prosecution based on selective quotes. Lines were being drawn in the sand.
Caliman resumed his questioning of Hilde N.
This time he referred to the notes from when Hilde N. had been questioned by investigators in November 2007. She had said then that she knew nothing about disciplinary measures taken against parishioners during her presidency.
And then he referred to another document from the thousands seized by investigators: in this one, the defendant had signed an ethics order putting staff in a Condition of Danger because its stats were down. (Caliman did not explain, but the Condition of Danger is part of the ethics conditions devised by Hubbard.) There was mention too of Overts and Withholds and a report to an ethics officer.
Caliman asked: Did these documents not contradict her testimony?
“I was not informed of that document and I don’t remember it either,” she replied. “and I want to add what M. [Vincent] G. said yesterday: we first of all need to put things in context.” She no longer knew what that context was, she said “…and for the rest, I no longer remember.” She was referring to the arguments about context advanced by her fellow defendant Vincent G. on the first day of the trial.
As he did for any point he thought especially worthy of attention, Judge Régimont had the court clerk record the exchange. “After a question put by the Prosecutor relating to an ethics order signed by Hilde N., the defendant no longer remembers what it is about, nor the context. Noté.”
“She is credible,” said her lawyer. “What she said then is what she says now.”
Now it was the turn of her lawyer, Maître Johan Scheers.
During the legal arguments earlier, Me. Scheers had been checking his files. He reminded the court that he had argued during procedural hearings in the Chambre de Conseil that preceded the trial that certain documents should have been translated from French to Flemish for her benefit. This latest dispute rather made his point for him, he suggested. But no matter: he had found the transcript of what she had told investigators and, contrary to what the prosecutor seemed to be suggesting, it matched what she had said in court.
Even then, she had told investigators that she could no longer remember, said Me. Scheers. So far as the BZ family was concerned – the family that the judge had asked her about earlier – she had seen them perhaps three times. It had been a French-speaking colleague who had taken care of them, she told investigators: just as she had said in court.
Earlier, the judge had raised the issue of her credibility, and her lawyer was addressing that question now. “She is credible,” said Me. Scheers. “What she said then is what she says now.” Perhaps the only thing she had added was her suggestion to the judge that she might have spoke to the family in English rather than French.
He had one question that he would like to put to his client, he said. Judge Régimont had no objection, and relayed the question: it was simply to establish that she had not been active on staff in Scientology in 2003: that she had written two letters of resignation at the end of 2002 asking to step down for health reasons. The defendant confirmed that that was the case.
And just so there was no misunderstanding, added Me. Scheers: did those health problems have anything to do with Scientology’s Purification Rundown? None, she confirmed. The question was important given that some of the defendants are on trial for the illegal practice of medicine.
Before she stepped down from the stand, she made a point of thanking her interpreters for their work.
Foto: Screenshot