Spiritual leader on the run

A spiritual leader with close links to New Zealand has been convicted on 20 counts of indecency with children in the United States.

Overseas reports say Hindu Prakashanand Saraswati, 82, is on the run from US authorities and was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment and an almost $13,000 fine on each count in his absence.

Saraswati, known to devotees as Shree Swamiji, is president of Auckland's International Society of Divine Love and established a temple and ashram in Remuera in the 1970s.

He had been returning to New Zealand regularly until his 2008 arrest in Washington by the US Marshal's Service on allegations of sexually assaulting young female devotees at his local temple.

Sources in the community said the New Zealand visits were controversial because of ongoing rumours of child abuse.

Auckland-based followers have dismissed the allegations against their guru and claimed complainants were planted to discredit his movement.

The US complainants, now in their 20s, told police Saraswati abused them in the 1990s when their parents took them to his Barsana Dham temple in Texas.

A jury found Saraswati guilty last month.

He is rumoured to have fled to Mexico with a view to illegally returning to India.

Saraswati was born in India but started preaching around the world in the early 1970s. Within 20 years he had established charitable organisations and temples in India, New Zealand and the US.