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ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 23449 • Posted: Thursday May 7, 2009  

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Escaped cult leader Julian Verbard arrested

Police on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion said they had arrested the paedophile leader of an outlawed sect who escaped from prison by helicopter last month.

Juliano Verbard, the 27-year-old founder of the outlawed Christian “Painful and Immaculate Heart of Mary” sect, was jailed for 15 years last year for raping two children.

He fled his jail on the island with two other prisoners thanks to the help of several accomplices, who took a helicopter crew hostage and forced the pilot to pick up the detainees from the prison courtyard.

“Five accomplices, including the four members of the group that set up the escape, have been arrested,” a police spokesman on the island said, adding that Verbard had been hiding in a house in the island’s capital, Saint-Denis.
[...]

The official announcement of the recapture of Verbard, 27, came from Paris where secretary of state for overseas affairs Yves Jego hailed “the remarkable work of the police on the island of Reunion which allowed the recapture of Juliano Verbard.”

Five of Verbard’s accomplices, including three who hijacked the helicopter, were captured in the raid, which was broadcast live on television.

Police said 50 officers were involved in the operation, AFP news agency reported.

Verbard, the leader of the pseudo-religious cult, the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, was jailed in 2008 for rape and sex attacks on children, and the other two for their roles in a kidnap.

Elsewhere AFP reports that 1,800 police men had been searching the island for Verbard and his accomplishes.

Last Saturday, six followers of the guru, in custody on the day of the escape, were indicted, including five in custody for complicity to escape.

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