French sect deaths relative speaks of new evidence, slams judicial inaction

BBC Monitoring European/September 19, 2003

[Presenter] We have a very moving account, as you will hear, from Alain Vuarnet, whose brother and mother were among the victims of the Order of the Solar Temple [who died in the Vercors mountains, in the Isere department of eastern France in a reported sect group suicide in December 1995]. [On 22nd September one of the alleged Solar Temple leaders is due to appear in court in Grenoble for an appeal hearing] The Vuarnet family have had fresh tests carried out and say they are convinced that it was murder. The bodies are reported to have been torched with a flame-thrower. Our correspondent in Lyon, Nicolas Fauroux [phonetic], recorded the account:

[Vuarnet] We had my mother and my little brother exhumed on 4 July. It was a very painful decision. Today I am in a position to give you the results - we have found large quantities of phosphorous in the various samples which were taken from the bodies of my mother and my little brother. This amounts to over - [changes thought] between 21 and 31 per cent, depending on the sample.

This explains a good many things - first of all phosphorous must be used, let me say, with a mixture of fuels - and at that point, when you have made this mixture, you can only use it with a flame- thrower.

Today we bring a fresh aspect to this appeal hearing which scientifically demonstrates that there was outside intervention, for the simple reason that the police didn't find any such flame- thrower on the spot or any other tool of this kind.

[passage omitted]

Let me tell you, I am sick of the judicial system forcing us to do such terrible things as exhuming my mother and my little brother - it still gives me goose pimples thinking about it - and I am really angry with the judicial system for driving me to do this kind of thing. It is not for me to do it. In any case, as far as I am concerned, I really don't know what more I can do.