Posted on 08/06/2007 3:29:19 PM PDT by Squidpup
SAINT-DENIS DE LA REUNION, La Reunion Sixteen members of a religious cult including a leading fugitive were in custody on an Indian Ocean island Monday after French commandos stormed their compound and rescued a boy they allegedly kidnapped.
Among those arrested was the believed head of the group, Julien Verbard, a 25-year-old who was convicted in absentia of raping two boys but had evaded police on the French island of La Reunion for three years.
Police say the cult considered 12-year-old Alexandre Thelahine a "new messiah" and abductors seized him from his parents' residence in Saint-Denis de la Reunion on Friday. They escaped by car before abandoning it and switching to another vehicle.
The child was kept in a house rented by the cult, called Mary's Painful and Immaculate Heart, in the southern part of La Reunion, a popular vacation destination for tourists from the French mainland.
On Sunday, agents from the elite GIGN police force stormed the compound near the Piton-de-la-Fournaise volcano. Four hours later, police said they had rescued the boy and arrested the cult members "without incident."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I agree. Start at the beginning and work you’re way through. I got the audio books narrated by Patrick Tull and listened to them during my commute. It’s a great way to make use of mostly empty time. I did them in sequence after reading one out of the middle and then seeing the movie. O’Brian “catches you up” if you come in in the middle but I think it’s a better experience to live with the characters serially as they experienced their lives.
Wow, that’s an old map. The place has gone much more developed.
BTW, love your nickname.
That looks like a great book. For me, the advantage of the audio books is that they provide a way to make better use of the hour and a half I spend commuting to work each day. I rarely have time to read the amount of fiction that I’d like with my current working schedule. It’s one of those many pleasures that I look forward to on retirement (hopefully down to “single-digit” years now). :-)
GIGN != FFL
These are the swat team for the Police Nationale.
These are some badassed dudes, whom you would not want
to annoy.
Despite what you might hear from the vast FR parking lot,
the professional French police and military are quite able
to create havoc.
The cult, or the house, is called that?
GIGN is not part of the Police Nationale. GIGN stands for Groupement d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale. These guys are Gendarmes, part of the army. And yes, basassed dudes. The brits SAS consider that GIGN has the “Best firearm training in the world” . (hundreds of shots every day, 24/7).
I apparently was misinformed, thinking that Gendarmerie would be the Police.
eh bien!
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