Nearly 25 years after the scandal, combining extortion and sexual abuse, the actions of the OKC Buddhist sect are coming back to Belgian justice, during a trial opened Thursday at the Liège Court of Appeal (east) .
This third trial in Belgium, for facts dating back to the 1980s, having notably taken place in a manor house in Castellane (south-eastern France), should run until May, according to the court of appeal. About fifteen hearings are planned.
"Healing Yoga"
Thursday morning at the opening, the main defendant, Robert Spatz, founder of the sect "Ogyen Kunzang Choling" (OKC), was absent. The 75-year-old Belgian, briefly imprisoned during the investigation, currently resides in southern Spain, a court spokesman told AFP. His wife, Olga de Strigwesky, and a legal person, the ASBL OKC are also tried in Liège.
Since the scandal broke out in 1997, Belgian justice has suspected OKC of having used the Buddhist religion to extort money from its members, forcing them to work for free and to make major donations to it.
At the start of the case, several complaints regarding inheritance had been lodged in Brussels. The sect refused care for its faithful patients, advocating “curative yoga” in medical matters. And one of its principles at the heart of the scandal was to ensure the education of the children of its followers outside parental control, at the "Château Soleil" center in Castellane.
It is in this context that there were allegedly abuses of certain children, assault and battery but also sexual touching. The suspicions weighing on the defendants are multiple, according to the Belgian press: "forgery, extortion, money laundering, kidnapping of children and sexual abuse". Robert Spatz, the spiritual guide of the sect founded in 1972, has always denied the facts.
"Sexual abuse of minors"
In 2016, in correctional in Brussels, he was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence of four years, in particular for "hostage-taking of minors" and "sexual abuse of minors", the daily Le Soir reminded Thursday. The prosecution had yet required thirteen years in prison.
A dramatic development, on appeal in 2018, the proceedings had been declared inadmissible due to several irregularities noted during the hearing at first instance. The file returns before another court of appeal, in Liege, because the Court of Cassation annulled this judgment pronounced in Brussels two years ago.
Twenty former OKC members, including children who have grown up to testify, are finally hoping to obtain justice, according to the daily La Dernier heure. After three hearings devoted to witnesses, the civil parties are to be heard in early March and the defendants in late March, according to the schedule of debates.
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