A French appeals court acquitted a Swiss orchestra conductor Wednesday of charges of criminal involvement in a doomsday cult that lost scores of members in ritual killings in France, Switzerland and Canada.

A Swiss orchestra conductor went on trial for the second time yesterday for his alleged role in a doomsday cult which lost dozens of members in ritual killings in Canada and Europe.

A Swiss orchestra conductor went on trial again Tuesday for his alleged role in a doomsday cult that lost scores of members in ritual deaths in France, Switzerland and Canada. Mr. Tabachnik is accused of contributing to the deaths of members of the Switzerland-based Order of the Solar Temple cult.

Franco-Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik is due to go back on trial in France on Tuesday, four years after he was acquitted of conspiring to brainwash 74 members of the Solar Temple doomsday cult into accepting death by occult ritual.

On This Day in 1994:

GRENOBLE, France (AP) - A French prosecutor's office rejected a request to reopen an investigation into the 1995 murder-suicide of 16 members of the Order of the Solar Temple doomsday group, a lawyer said Thursday.

GRENOBLE, France (Reuters) - A fresh legal bid to convict a Swiss orchestra conductor of involvement in the ritualistic deaths of 16 cult members in 1995 has been adjourned by a French court.

GRENOBLE, France, Sept 22 (AFP) - A French court Monday delayed until June the trial on appeal of a Franco-Swiss conductor, Michel Tabachnik, suspected of helping to brainwash 74 members of the Solar Temple doomsday cult who died in the 1990s.

Excerpt from report by French Europe 1 radio on 19 September

Switzerland: Firefighters find 23 bodies in a remote farmhouse and 25 more in three Alps chalets. Victims were apparently members of a sect led by a fugitive Canadian.