Belgian court rejects case against Scientology

BRUSSELS: A Belgian court on Friday threw out charges that could have seen Church of Scientology banned as a “criminal enterprise,” after a judge said the defendants were targeted because of their religion.
Eleven members of the celebrity-backed US-based church and two affiliated bodies had been charged with fraud, extortion, the illegal practice of medicine, running a criminal enterprise and violating the right to privacy.
“The entire proceedings are declared inadmissible for a serious and irremediable breach of the right to a fair trial,” presiding judge Yves Regimont said at the Palace of Justice in Brussels.
He criticized the investigators involved in an 18-year probe into Scientology in Belgium for what he said was prejudice, and prosecutors for being vague in their case against the religion.
“The defendants were prosecuted primarily because they were Scientologists,” the judge added.
The case was the subject of a seven-week trial that ended last December.
“It’s a relief,” Scientology’s spokesman in Belgium, Eric Roux, told reporters outside the court.
“When you have had 20 years of your life under a pressure that you know is unfair, where one attacks your beliefs and not something you have done, the day when the court says it officially, it’s a big relief,” he added.
Defense lawyer Pascal Vanderveeren denounced the case as careless and prejudiced aimed at “attacking Scientology and not those who are part of it.”