40 years ago: Indian guru receives prison sentence in Switzerland for ordering followers to commit crimes against opponents

As reported by United Press International, May 23, 1979:

Lausanne, Switzerland--Self-styled Indian guru Swami Okmarananda [reported in some newspapers as Ommarananda--blogger] was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment Tuesday for ordering members of his bizarre Divine Light Centre to kill and intimidate opponents of his sect.

Okmarananda, 49, whose sect practised sexual and black-magic rites, promptly appealed the verdict by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court.

He was arrested in 1976 after Divine Light members blew up the house of Zurich state police chief Jakob Stucki.

Stucki and his family escaped unhurt.

Sentenced along with Okmarananda was his right-hand man Joseph Meichtry, a Swiss, who was sentenced to seven years.

A German woman, Verena Plein, received a four-year sentence and was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment.

A 24-year-old Australian nurse, Katherine Bingham, was sentenced to 27 months.

Verena Plein told the court during the two-week trial that she had been forced to serve as a human altar. She was raped and a chicken was slaughtered over her body.

Katherine Bingham told the court that Okmarananda had sect members inject poison into chocolates and tomatoes and try to give them to the families of authorities opposing the Divine Light Centre, which had its headquarters in Wintethur, north of Zurich.

Two youths, Johannes Schaeben and Theo Diem, received suspended terms of one year and six months respectively.

Miss Bingham's sentence was also suspended. She will be expelled immediately from Switzerland because the court also handed down a sentence of three years expulsion from the country.

According to the Wikibin entry on Swami Okmarananda:

The evidence against the Swami himself is disputed, however, and in a later series of articles published in the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger an investigative journalist presented certain materials which supposedly had been suppressed at the time of the trial, such as involvement of Belgian and Zurich police. One of the Zurich police officers - who led the investigation and the one who is accused of signing a letter ordering the suppression of material - was later accused of corruption.

Swami Okmarananda died on January 4, 2000, six days after his 70th birthday.