www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/05...to-wait/
[ Here is the first part of the article check UIRL for full interview text ]
On April 26, 2001, Keith Henson was convicted of interfering with a religion — a misdemeanor under California law — for picketing outside Scientology’s heavily armed, razor wire-enforced base, outside Hemet California. He split for Canada, becoming the world’s first “Scientology fugitive,” and he’s back in the U.S. dealing with a variety of court cases related to Scientology.
Henson was just thrown back in jail. As best as I can make out from the limited information currently available, Henson and his lawyers were scheduled for a hearing at 1:30 pm on Tuesday, May 8th. They were apparently unaware that warrants had recently been signed by the Governors of California and Arizona, and after the hearing, Henson was handed over to the Yavapai County Sheriff Department for incarceration until a hearing on Wednesday May 9th at 9 a.m. (A note received this afternoon — May 9th — from Henson’s wife, Arel Lucas, says that he will remain in the lockup at least until Monday, May 13th.
posted by:
|
SF Bay Area
|
-
Re: Keith Henson Back in Jail
Thu, May 10, 2007 - 4:32 PM
see also
www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/02...rrested/
[ see URL for full text ]
On Friday, Arizona police arrested a 64-year-old man — a fugitive since 2001 in a bizarre war that mixes free speech, copyright law, and the Church of Scientology.
Keith Henson’s journey began seven years ago while innocuously watching another critic mock the group on an internet newsgroup. In a gonzo discussion about procuring a “Tom Cruise missile,” they’d joked about working with “Secret Agent 99, wearing a stunning black leather biker outfit.” Other posters joined in the internet discussion, asking whether Tom Cruise missiles are affected by wind.”No way,” Keith joked. “Modern weapons are accurate to a matter of a few tens of yards.”
The police were informed of his “threatening” posts, and Henson was arrested.
The police tipsters were the Scientologists themselves, who had already been the targets of an annoying picketing campaign by Henson over the death of a woman near their complex. Besides Henson’s inability to acquire long-range missiles, his wife notes bitterly that it would be impossible for any church members in the complex to feel threatened by the internet posts, since they aren’t even allowed to access the internet. Scientology officials have also claimed Henson followed their employees home — though Henson counters that “the same people who claimed to have been ‘terrorized’ by the picketers offered to take them to lunch on June 25, 2000, evidently to distract them from the death scene being cleaned up.”
Though Henson was found innocent of long-range missile terrorism, for his activities he was convicted of interfering with a church — a California hate crime for which he received a six-month misdemeanor prison sentence. But Henson said he feared his life would be in danger from Scientologists if he were imprisoned - and he fled to Canada in 2001.
He was already bankrupt from an earlier ruling that he’d infringed on Scientology copyrights. But Henson continued picketing Scientologists in Toronto, and they apparently retaliated by informing Canadian police of his presence. (Henson believes the Scientologists told police he was a terrorist and bomb maker.) L.A. Weekly reported two unmarked vans pulled up and “a handful of emergency-services task-force officers — Canada’s version of a police SWAT team — spilled out, wearing body armor and carrying submachine guns.” Describing the event, the EFF reported Henson was “arrested in a shopping mall parking lot, by a heavily armed paramilitary unit.”
