- DENVER (AP) - Members of a doomsday cult returned to Denver with security
escorts Saturday after being deported from Israel, and got police to help
them avoid any contact with their waiting relatives.
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- Israeli authorities had expelled the
14 members of Concerned Christians, including six children, earlier Saturday,
placing them on a plane to Toronto. They were accompanied by three Israel
security agents.
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- The group was accused by Israeli officials
of plotting attacks in Jerusalem to hasten the return of Jesus Christ.
No charges were filed, however.
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- Authorities also expressed concern that
cult members were planning a mass suicide.
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- After arriving in Denver on a flight
from Toronto, police and Air Canada personnel took the group to an undisclosed
location. The group members asked for that move after landing and discovering
that relatives were waiting for them inside the airport, said police spokesman
John Wyckoff.
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- ''They had concerns about their safety,''
Wyckoff said.
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- The only view the waiting families had
of the group was a glimpse through a concourse window as the 14 boarded
a bus on the tarmac near the jet.
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- ''They're not even looking up,'' said
Beth Bayles, her face pressed to the window as she watched her son, John,
board the bus a couple of hundred feet away.
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- ''All I can say is Kim Miller got his
way,'' said Del Dyck, 50, of Gypsum, whose 20-year-old son, James, and
James' wife and child, were with the group.
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- Monte Kim Miller, the group's leader,
dropped out of sight in the fall after saying he would die in the streets
of Jerusalem next December and be resurrected three days later. Eran Avital,
a lawyer who represents three members of Concerned Christians, has said
they told him Miller was in London.
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- Miller claimed that God was using him
as a vehicle to speak to his followers.
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- As many as 70 adherents of the cult had
sold their belongings and left their homes and jobs in Denver and other
areas in October. When relatives and friends noticed the departures, they
discovered the group believed that Denver would be destroyed by an earthquake
that would signal the beginning of the apocalypse.
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- The group of 14 later appeared in Jerusalem,
while other members, ranging in age from infancy to 68, still are not accounted
for. Some are believed to be in Greece and London.
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- ''I feel let down. I came all the way
down to see them,'' said James Dyck's 18-year-old brother, Josh. He said
he doubted if the families would ever hear from the group.
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