MASS SUICIDE PLOT FOILED

In what could have been called “Heaven’s Gate II,” police in Spain prevented a plan in which cult leader Heide Fittkau-Garthe orchestrated the mass suicide of herself and 32 of her followers. The 57-year-old Fittkau-Garthe, a German psychologist, was charged Jan. 10 with attempted murder and ordered held without bail. She was arrested Jan. 7 at her chalet on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife during what police described as the group’s “last supper.”

Officials stated they were alerted to the suicide pact by the cult leader’s brother, a businessman from Duesseldorf. Police said they discovered poisonous chemicals at her home.

According to a Reuters News Service report, Fittkau-Garthe and her followers believed that a UFO “would rescue their souls from the summit of the Teide volcano and take them to a new world.” Members of the sect have refused to cooperate in the investigation by authorities.

—MKG

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