Panawave, a cult whose members dress entirely in white and deck out any areas they travel in white sheets, has won a Tokyo District Court battle against weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun for defamation.

Police on Monday arrested an employee of a car maintenance firm in Fukui and questioned its president on suspicion it falsified safety inspections of vehicles belonging to the Pana Wave Laboratory. The police also searched the headquarters of the group in the city.

FUKUI, Japan, Dec. 27 (Kyodo) -- Five members of the Pana Wave Laboratory cult-like doomsday group were released Friday after paying 200,000 yen each in fines that a summary court ordered in connection with their assault of a member, who later died, in August in the city of Fukui, Fukui Prefecture.

Paranoia gripped Japanese residents in April when the bizarre Panawave Laboratory group appeared and took over a stretch of road in Gifu Prefecture, covering up crash barriers and roadside trees with huge white cloths.

The Pana Wave Laboratory group in Fukui, five of whose members were arrested Friday on suspicion of beating an associate professor of a Fukuoka university who died in the group's facility in August, compiled a manual giving instructions on how to administer punishment beatings to members, police said Friday.

FUKUI (Kyodo) Five members of Pana Wave Laboratory, a sect whose members dress in white, were arrested Friday in connection with the August death of a man at their compound in the city of Fukui, police said.

FUKUI -- Five members of the Panawave cult were arrested Friday for beating an academic with bamboo sticks to remove electromagnetic waves, police said.

FUKUI — Five members of cult-like group Pana Wave Laboratory were arrested Friday over the death of a man in August at the group's facilities in the city of Fukui, central Japan, police said.

FUKUI (Kyodo) A member of the Pana Wave Laboratory sect died at a hospital Friday, having been found unconscious in a creek here earlier in the morning, firefighters said.

FUKUI — A member of the Pana Wave Laboratory cult-like group died Friday in a hospital to which he was taken after being found unconscious in a creek in the city of Fukui earlier in the morning, firefighters said.

FUKUI (Kyodo) Pana Wave Laboratory on Sunday removed white cloth from a Fukui riverside that the group has occupied for several months.

FUKUI -- The all-white Panawave cult removed white fabric that they had used to cover a long-stretch of a river embankment near their Fukui headquarters to protect themselves from "electromagnetic wave attacks," authorities confirmed Sunday.

Daily Yomiuri (Japan), Aug. 12, 2003

Japan Today, Aug. 10, 2003

Associated Press, Aug. 10, 2003