GRENOBLE, France (Reuters) - Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik has
   gone on trial for conspiracy to murder stemming from his involvement
   in the Order of the Solar Temple doomsday sect, thought to be
   responsible for 74 deaths.  The trial in Grenoble, in the French
   Alps, will mainly focus on the deaths of 16 cult members, including
   three children, whose charred bodies were found, laid out in a star
   pattern, in December 1995 in a remote French Alpine forest.  "I have
   come before my judges because I have done absolutely nothing wrong,"
   said Tabachnik, the only defendant in the first trial aimed at the
   cult.

   The French judge who investigated the deaths believes two cult members
   drugged and shot dead the 14 others before setting themselves and
   the bodies on fire in a forest clearing known as the Well of Hell.
   Lawyers for some of the victims' families allege all 16 were killed
   and set on fire by other sect members who fled the scene.  One of
   the relatives said his lawyer would ask that the trial be postponed
   because he believes the perpetrators are still at large.

   Prosecutors accuse Tabachnik, an internationally known orchestra
   conductor, of playing a leading role in the sect and inciting cult
   members into suicide pacts.  "This trial is a pretext for the justice
   system to show that it is fighting sects.  Michel Tabachnik is being
   prosecuted for his opinions," said Francis Szpiner, one of his lawyers.

   The conductor, 58, has admitted that he once had links to the sect
   but has denied that he was one of its leading figures.  He has insisted
   that he knew nothing about any of the cult's mass suicides, which
   led 74 members to their deaths in Europe and Canada between 1994 and
   1997.  If convicted, Tabachnik faces up to 10 years in prison and a
   fine of one million francs (135,000 dollars).  The trial is scheduled
   to last for two weeks.  "He is a scapegoat for prosecutors who need
   a trial.  There has already been an investigation in Switzerland and
   he was not indicted," Caroline Toby, another of his lawyers, told
   Reuters.

   Members of the Order of the Solar Temple believe that "death voyages"
   by ritualised suicide lead to rebirth on the star Sirius.  They think
   the world will end in fire and that they must die by burning in order
   to reach the afterworld.  Dozens of witnesses will testify in Grenoble
   about the history of the sect, which was founded in the early 1990s
   by Joseph Di Mambro, a Frenchman, and Luc Jouret, a Swiss national.
   The sect is now believed to be dormant.

   Di Mambro and 22 cult members died in a mass murder-cum-suicide in
   Cheiry, Canada, in October 1994.  Jouret died in similar circumstances
   later the same month, along with 24 others, in Salvan, Switzerland.
   Ten others died in Canada in separate group suicides, in Morin Heights
   in September 1994 and Saint-Casimir in March 1997.  Tabachnik, a
   specialist in contemporary music, is also a composer.  His career
   has been on hold since he was placed under investigation in 1996.
   He was a member of the Golden Way, a group founded in 1978 by Di
   Mambro that was the precursor of the Solar Temple sect.

from Grove....

   In 1994, his interest in the occult and cosmology brought about a
   life crisis, when he was suspected of taking part in the cult of the
   Solar Temple, whose members committed collective suicide.  After he
   was cleared of any liability, he published an extensive work in his
   own defence, Le bouc emissaire:  Michel Tabachnik dans le piege du
   Temple solaire (Hauts-de-Seine, 1997), which includes a foreword by
   Boulez.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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