Canary Islands police foil supposed cult suicide plot
January 10, 1998

A German psychologist on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife was charged with attempted murder and inducement to suicide for her role in a suspected mass suicide plot and was ordered held without bail, a court official told Reuters.

The judge, after a lengthy hearing, ordered Fittkau-Garthe, 57, to be held in prison without bail while authorities continued their investigation.

Reuters reported that Spanish police officials foiled the suicide plot during what they described as a "last supper'' at her chalet on Tenerife. Police found poisonous chemicals, which they believe were to be used in a mass suicide by her 32 followers.

Police spokesman Juan Antonio Perez told Reuters that German psychologist Heide Fittkau-Garthe had brainwashed her disciples and they were going to poison themselves.

The group, which may be linked to the infamous Solar Temple cult or a Hindu apocalyptic sect, had planned to kill themselves at the top of Tenerife's Teide volcano from where they believed their souls would be picked up by a spaceship, officials said, according to Reuters.

The sect members had apparently been convinced by Fittkau-Garthe that the world would end at 20:00 GMT on Thursday and they would be rescued and taken to a new world.

A spokesman for prosecutors said investigators had to decide whether the woman from Hamburg would be charged with attempted murder or manslaughter. In Germany, complicity to suicide is not a criminal offense, but it is a criminal offense in Spain. The woman will be prosecuted for her suspected preparations for mass suicide, because she planned it for children as well as adults, according to Reuters.

The spokesman also told Reuters that investigators will examine the possibility that the members of the sect were psychologically dependent on the woman and, in that case, not responsible for their own actions.

German police said the alleged cult leader's brother, a 47-year-old businessman from Duesseldorf, had alerted them to the mass suicide plan and they tipped off Spanish police, Reuters reported.

``She was provisionally jailed without bail on criminal charges of inducement to suicide and attempted murder,'' a court spokeswoman told Reuters, reading from the judge's order.

The group was made up of 14 women, 13 men, and five children between four and 12 years old, police said. They were all German nationals except for one woman from the Canary Islands.

Fittkau-Garthe is divorced with a 21-year-old son and has lived in the Canary Islands for more than 10 years, according to Spanish news reports.