[Dixielandjazz] Newspaper story

[Bill Haesler]

Dear friends,
I'm sorry to be a bit late with this one.
An article by journalist Les Kennedy (heavily edited below) appeared 
last weekend in The Sydney Morning Herald regarding a self-proclaimed 
Buddhist monk known as Ajahn Yanatharo, The bespectacled 62-year-old, 
sandal-wearing and saffron-robed Buddhist is known to locals as the 
operator of a laundrette in inner-Sydney, Australia. He is also 
well-known to local drug squad detectives as Jose Maria Sanz-Tonnelie, 
having been arrested on 12 cannabis-related drug charges, including 
hydroponically cultivating it at the laundrette which also serves as 
his home.
In 2002 he was featured on ABC Radio National as Ajarn Jose, born in 
Argentina into a wealthy family that made its fortune in tobacco. He 
spent most of his life travelling and studying, has an undergraduate 
degree in science, is an MD with a PhD from UCLA in the US. He came to 
Australia to teach, bought a million-dollar house and settled into the 
high life until he abandoned his fortune, his Catholicism, and his 
family to become a Buddhist Monk and the Buddhist chaplain at Canberra 
University.
According to a biography published on the Buddhist centre's website, he 
is also works at St Vincent Hospital as a monk dealing with HIV/Aids 
and drug addicts. This has been denied by a hospital spokesman.
As he left the court last Friday ,following his appearance on the 
drug-related charges, he was arrested again on a charge of public 
mischief for falsely reporting  to police in May that both his US and 
Argentinian passports had been stolen while he was staying with other 
monks.
[Still with me?]
Yet according to earlier court documents, both passports had been 
surrendered to the court when he was given bail so he could receive 
continuing treatment for cancer and that he had tried unsuccessfully in 
May to have his passports returned because he had "nil convictions", 
strong community ties and needed to travel to Thailand to attend a 
United Nations Conference. He has indicated that he will plead not 
guilty to all charges re-listed for a court hearing on September 25.
The point of all this on our dedicated jazz site?
The inspired sub-heading to the SMH news item regarding this 
interesting person: 'The felonious monk and his trail of lies.'
Kind regards,
Bill.
For anyone interested, the full story with pic is at
     www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/14/1189276983707.html