Word: di
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Switzerland and Canada two weeks ago. One question was answered: Luc Jouret, 46, the spiritual leader of the cult, was among those whose bodies were found in three burned ski chalets in Granges-sur-Salvan, east of Geneva. Jouret's charred remains, along with those of co-leader Joseph di Mambro, 70, were identified from dental records. The finding ended an international manhunt for the two men and left police to pull together from other sources basic facts about the Solar Temple, an organization that apparently milked followers of their money before taking their lives...
...least five children were among the 53 who died in what Swiss and Canadian officials believe was mass murder followed by mass suicide. Jouret, a Belgian born in Zaire, and Di Mambro, a French Canadian, apparently were among the suicides. Twenty-five people died at Granges-sur-Salvan, 23 in a barn in the village of Cheiry and five in a chalet north of Montreal. The sites were set on fire with devices made from canisters of gasoline and butane and a phone- activated detonator...
...mass deaths occurred remained unclear. The French daily Le Monde reported that the passports of Di Mambro and his French-born wife Jocelyne had been sent to Interior Minister Charles Pasqua only days before their deaths. A copy of a letter that began "Dear Charlie" was sent to the newspaper, claiming that the French embassy in Ottawa had been instructed by Paris not to renew Jocelyne's passport last year, at a time when the couple were still living in Canada. It was Pasqua's "desire to destroy" the Solar Temple through "unsupportable harassment," the Di Mambros' letter said, that...
...custody, was one of several well-connected converts to the Solar Temple, many of whom signed over their assets. Investigators suggested that the cult may have amassed as much as $93 million and that part of the money was used to support a posh life-style for Jouret and Di Mambro and to buy houses in Western Europe and Canada. Last week at least five more Temple properties were discovered. Two of them -- an apartment near Montreux, Switzerland, and a villa near Avignon, France -- had been rigged to explode in flames...
Swiss, French and Canadian officials also probed the possibility that Jouret < and Di Mambro had been involved in gunrunning or money-laundering schemes. Jouret had publicly urged followers to stockpile weapons to prepare for the end of the world and last year pleaded guilty in Canada to illegal arms possession. Canadian officials confirmed they were pursuing specific information implicating Di Mambro in money laundering, but they expressed skepticism at a report that Solar Temple leaders had purchased guns and other military equipment in Australia and resold the materiel in the Third World...