Extract from French TV show Ciel mon mardi! hosted by journalist Christopher Dechavanne aired on 11 October 1992 between Rael and his minion Gilles Carbonnell and the former follower John Parraga.
John Parraga claimed that Raël was holding Parraga's wife and children prisoner in the sensual meditation campsite, that Raël had engineered his family's breakup, brainwashed his wife, and encouraged her infidelity. He brought up the issue of a child's tragic accidental death at the camp the previous year-the child was riding a bicycle and fell into the empty swimming pool that his father was working on. Parraga suggested that this was a case of murder or ritual sacrifice and implied that children were routinely sacrificed and sexually molested during the sensual meditation seminars.
Parraga, elegantly dressed, presented himself as a concerned father and heartbroken husband. What went unmentioned was his conviction as a smuggler and dealer in drugs and stolen cars. Later he spent several years in jail for proxenetisme (pimping, or running a prostitution ring).
Jean Parraga is a French citizen who owned a car repair shop and during the mid 1980s smuggled cars and drugs between France and Algiers to sell on the black market. Soon after he and his wife, Sylvie, became Raelians, he was arrested at the Algiers border for attempting to smuggle into the country a stolen Mercedes whose doors were stuffed with hashish. When Parraga complained how very unpleasant the conditions were in the Algiers jail, the Raelians raised funds in their community for bail and hired a lawyer to have him transferred to a more comfortable prison in France.
When Parraga was released, he was enraged to find that his wife and two children had lived with a Raelian guide for two years. He assaulted the guide during a Raelian conference but was restrained. In August 1992, he claimed that his wife and children were being held prisoners at the campsite of the Stages of Awakening seminar in the south of France. He left death threats on their answering machine, alerting the guards, who called the police. When Parraga attempted to enter the camp gate, carrying a gun to assassinate Raël, his way was barred by the camp security force and the local police. The Raelians were outraged that this man was presented as a respectable citizen and concerned father on the television show, and that his drug dealing, jail record, and murder threats were not mentioned. (excerpts from Susan Palmer's Aliens Adored, pp. 71-72)
Translation credits: Claire Labrie