Cult leader `had chemicals'

Saturday 10 January 1998 00:02 GMT

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Spanish police said yesterday that they had found poisonous chemicals at the home of an alleged doomsday cult leader which they believe were to be used in a mass suicide by her 32 followers.

Police spokesman Juan Antonio Perez said the German psychologist Heide Fittkau-Garthe, who was arrested on Wednesday when police foiled the suspected suicide plot, had "brainwashed" her disciples and they would need to be "de-programmed". The group had planned to kill themselves at the top of Tenerife's Teide volcano.

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Cult leader `had chemicals'

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