Waylon Johnston
French couple request bail
A French couple who are waiting for appeal proceedings to start following an extradition order have filed a request for bail.
Alan Schmitt and Laurence Liegeois are fighting an extradition order issued by the Magistrates Court last week with an appeal based mainly on Mr Schmitt's medical condition. He suffers from type 1 diabetes and is 98 per cent blind.
The couple's lawyer, Emmy Bezzina yesterday filed an application in the Criminal Court of Appeal for the couple to be granted bail until the appeal is heard and decided.
Attached to Mr Schmitt's application was a sworn declaration by Michael Schmitt, his son, who also requested that his father be granted bail.
In the declaration Mr Schmitt alleges that on the night of February 5, his father seemed to have suffered a stroke and "only just escaped death". Still, the medical staff at Mount Carmel Hospital only attended to him several hours later.
According to Mr Schmitt, they claimed that what he had suffered from was "probably the consequence of a mixture of Fanta and Sprite that Alan Schmitt drank in the night during a hypoglycaemic episode to get his sugar levels back to normal".
He said his father also suffered severe diarrhoea all night but was left to cope with the situation in a dark cell alone, despite being 98 per cent blind.
The fact that he shared toilet facilities with another inmate left him "exposed to his fellow inmate", stripping Alan Schmidt of all human dignity, his son said.
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lgalea
Feb 9th 2010, 14:00
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2010/02/07/t10.html
French sect victims ‘ate dog food, drank toilet water’
Victims of the French cult leader Alain Schmitt, who is appealing an extradition order to France, have spoken out on their horrifying experience at the hands of the Minh Vacma sect leader.
Schmitt and his Belgian fiancée Laurence Liegeois were arrested in a Naxxar residence on 7 January while fleeing from justice after a French court in Thionville, found them guilty in absentia in 2008 on kidnapping charges. Schmitt was given a five-year prison sentence, while Liegois got three years.
Former members of the religious sect Minh Vacma testified that they were subjected to inhumane treatment while living in the sect’s compound in Algrange. Witnesses said they were forced to eat dog food and drink toilet water. One victim said he was extorted out of around €21,000, while others claim promotions in Minh Vacma’s hierarchy were made in return for sexual favours.....