c. 1999 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Moving to head off the possibility of millennium-induced violence, Israel has ordered the deportation of 11 U.S. citizens believed to be members of the Denver-based Concerned Christians”doomsday”sect, and is holding three more for further questioning.

The 14 Americans, including six children, were detained in a raid Sunday (Jan. 3) on two suburban Jerusalem homes. Police said they believed the detainees were all members of the Colorado group Concerned Christians led by Monte Kim Miller, and that they intended to commit an”extreme and violent act in the streets of Jersualem towards the end of the year 1999, in order to hasten the second coming of Jesus.” American officials in Jerusalem confirmed that some members of the group had been served deportation papers ordering them out of Israel within 72 hours.

The three still being questioned were brought before a court in the Israeli city of Petah Tikveh, where their detention was extended. One of the three, identified as John Bayles of Denver, denied the group was planning violence.”I am not here to hurt anyone,”he reportedly said.

Bayles and Terry Smith of Eagle, Colo., and Eric Malesic of Westminister, Colo., were ordered held another 48 hours so police could complete their investigation. The 11 being deported were also in police custody waiting their expulsion from the country.

An estimated 78 members of the group disappeared from Denver in October, according to news accounts at the time, after Miller allegedly told them he expected to die and be resurrected in Jerusalem just before the turn of the millennium. In the past, Miller has described himself as a character in the New Testament book of Revelation.

An Israeli police spokeswoman said Miller himself was not in the country, although other sources indicated other members of the sect may indeed have entered Israel.

Members of the group began entering Israel last summer and rented two large homes on Jerusalem’s suburban fringes. Police said group members were living on savings and donations. “The arrests were carried out in order to protect the various groups in Israeli society, as well as to protect the members themselves who operate out of blind faith in their leader,”said police spokeswoman Linda Menuchim.

Looking forward to the expected arrival of millions of Christian pilgrims to celebrate the millennium, Menuchim said”police will continue acting in every legal way to safeguard the freedom of worship and religion in Israel for all religions. Nevertheless, the police will act vehemently against any attempts by extreme groups to disrupt the arrival of Christians in 1999.” Police and members of the General Security Services, or Shin Bet, swooped down on the two houses early Sunday evening. Neighbors of one of the houses in the hilltop village of Mevasseret Zion, said they knew little of their American neighbors _ except that they appeared not to have jobs. “They didn’t work, they just hung out,”Nir Hanuni, one neighbor of the alleged sect members, told reporters.

Monday morning, freshly washed children’s laundry belonging to the group still hung on the clothes line in the backyard of one of the sect’s homes, a two-story stone villa with a breathtaking view of Jerusalem. Garden tools lay on the porch, and nearby a small plot of earth had been freshly upturned and lined with irrigation hoses, apparently made ready for planting.

At the doorway of the deserted house, a cassette tape and photocopies of the”Time of the End Series”of lectures apparently by cult leader Miller were still scattered on the ground.

Israel’s security services have recently set up a special task force to try to head off millennium-related incidents of violence, and are cooperating with the FBI in the identification of potentially dangerous cults or cult leaders, reports here indicate.

But one Israeli expert on extremist religious groups expressed concern that Israel’s inexperience in dealing with U.S.-style sects could lead to the kind of confrontation between group members and Israeli police that erupted in the deadly 1993 conflagration at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, after a standoff with federal law enforcement agencies.

Hebrew University’s Ehud Sprinzak said Israelis should seek”dialogue”with sect members.”I am convinced that we can dialogue with people like this to prevent a series of mistakes that end in deaths and suicides,”he told Israel Radio.

DEA END FLETCHER