- JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police detained eight adults and six children
belonging to a Denver-based apocalyptic Christian cult on Sunday, and
accused the group of planning violent acts in Jerusalem.
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- The cult members - comprising three families
- did not resist arrest when police raided two apartments in suburbs outside
Jerusalem, police spokesman Shmuel ben Ruby told The Associated Press.
-
- ''The arrests were carried out to protect
certain sectors of the Israeli population and members of the cult themselves
who blindly follow'' a leader who is now overseas, a police statement
said.
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- The cult's leader has been identified
as Monte Kim Miller, a 44-year-old former Denver resident.
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- Seventy members of the Concerned Christians
cult disappeared from Denver in October and were believed to be living
in the Jerusalem area.
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- The Shin Bet, Israel's internal security
service, had information that cult members planned ''extremist acts'' in
the streets of Jerusalem toward the end of 1999, the police statement
said.
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- The cult members hoped such acts would
accelerate the second coming of Jesus Christ, the statement said.
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- The 78 members of the Concerned Christians
who vanished in October include members who are white and black, married
and single, white-collar professionals and unemployed laborers.
-
- They range in age from infancy to 68.
-
- Miller has said he's one of the final
two witnesses prophesied in the Bible in Chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation.
He claims he is destined to die in the streets of Jerusalem in the final
days of December 1999.
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