GENEVA, Oct. 13 -- Swiss police said Thursday the wanted leader of the Order of the Solar Temple was among the 48 members of the doomsday sect found dead in burned out buildings in Switzerland last week, but the announcement did little to clarify the bizarre circumstances surrounding the deaths. Jouret's positive identification came as a blow to the Canadian, Swiss and Australian authorities who had hoped to apprehend the cult leader and piece together the jigsaw puzzle of information that would explain the deaths of 48 people in Switzerland and five near Montreal, Canada, Oct. 5. The mystery continued to deepen as reports spoke of links to a Mafia family in Sicily, intricate arms trafficking operations through third world countries, secret Swiss bank accounts and luxurious apartments in Australia. Investigating judge Jean-Pascal Jaquemet said sect leader Luc Jouret was identified as being among the 25 people who were found dead at two chalets in Granges-sur-Salvan. A further 23 people were found dead in a farmhouse in nearby Chevrey and another five bodies were discovered in a duplex near Montreal. Jaquemet said the cult's No. 2 leader Elie DiMambro and his son Joseph DiMambro, as well as Camille Pilet, believed to have been the group's financial controller, were among the dead. The Swiss authorities said French ski star Patrick Vuarnet is being held as a key witness in the case. He apparently sent farewell letters to police, media and the French interior ministry, the day after the killings, explaining the cult's action.
Vuarnet claims he was given the letters by DiMambro the day before the killings and was not told sect members would meet at the chalets and the farmhouse. All 53 sect members were either drugged, shot, stabbed or suffocated. The Swiss authorities, who initially called the slayings mass suicide later switched investigations to mass murder, after it was discovered that several members were shot two or three times, and many had been drugged. The chalets, farmhouse and the duplex were all destroyed by sophisticated explosives that were triggered by a telephone call. Swiss police have confirmed that several bank accounts owned by key sect members have been frozen, although they have declined to comment on news reports that they contain millions of dollars. The Australian authorities, reported to be on a state of alert searching for cult members who could have fled there, are investigating allegations that arms were shipped through Australian ports, then through Third World nations onto the international arms market. The authorities in Sydney confirmed late Wednesday that a bank account held by Joseph DiMambro contained 95,000 Swiss francs ($75,000). They also said sect members were renting three luxury apartments on Queensland's Gold Coast, a popular tourist resort area, and that Jouret and DiMambro had visited the country several times, most recently in April. Meanwhile, in the latest twist in the bizarre affair, two of Belgium's leading newspapers, Le Soir Illustre and La Libre Belgique, asserted that Italy's anti-mafia police have files on DiMambro and Alberto Giacobino, the owner of the Swiss farmhouse. The reports said the files link the two cult members to a well-known Sicilian Mafia family whose activities are understood to include arms dealings. In 1993 Jouret was fined 1,000 Canadian dollars ($742) forpossessing illegal firearms. It is understood the sect advocated stockpiling weapons to prepare for the end of the world.
