The unrepentant Scientology foe was arrested in a parking lot in Oakville by Halton regional police and detectives from the Toronto fugitive squad a few days ago, in a scene that, to hear a friend who was with him tell it, was right out of America's Most Wanted. He looks like he should be out in a backyard somewhere pruning roses, but it turns out that Henson is on the lam, wanted for failing to show for a sentencing hearing in his native California back on May 16. A defence fund has been set up, and messages have been flying back and forth through an Internet newsgroup. A posting about the goings-on at this morning's hearing will be on the Web within hours. That's quickly followed by a call to NOW's offices from an interested watcher in the Netherlands who hears we were the only media at the hearing.
News travels fast in anti-Scientology circles.
Henson is their latest hero. But the foot-high stack of documents sitting in a file in front of Irene Dicaire, the senior lawyer with Immigration who will be making the case against Henson's release, doesn't paint a flattering portrait of the activist. As far as we understand, Mr. Henson is an explosives expert who has threatened to target sites involving the Church of Scientology. There may be information coming on that later, but the cop at 52 Division with the supposedly incriminating evidence is on vacation and won't be back until Monday. It's all sounding a little fishy to Henson's lawyer, Joel Sandaluk.