On the run from L. Ron Hubbard

Keith Henson, Scientology gadfly turned fugitive from justice, explains his reasons for fleeing the United States.

Just last month, the California Superior Court in Riverside County handed Henson a major defeat. Citing Henson's picketing in front of Riverside's Golden Era Productions (a sound and film studio for the Church of Scientology) last summer and messages he posted in a Scientology newsgroup, the court found Henson guilty of violating the state's hate-crimes law. His demonstrations, the court ruled, interfered with Scientologists' constitutional right to religious freedom.

Online critics of Scientology, and some free-speech advocates, responded to the decision with outrage, calling Henson ''an American hero.'' His conviction, they said, was nothing less than a ''miscarriage of justice,'' as one poster at geek site Slashdot put it. Others called Henson ''a martyr.''

Meanwhile, Henson's tactics have often seemed a bit quixotic -- even his supporters say that he tends to act without thinking. They question, for example, the wisdom of Henson's two-line contribution to a thread in the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup about directing a nuclear missile at church members. Henson contends that his post implied no real threat to Scientology members and that it was merely a response to another post in a long-running joke about ''Cruise'' (as in Scientology celeb Tom) missiles.

Still, it was an odd move for someone ostensibly dedicated to serious critique, and it brought an immediate outcry from Scientologists. ''Free speech does not protect threats of mass destruction,'' said Scientology spokesman Ken Hoden. ''It does not protect threats of missile attacks. It does not protect what he did. He's trying to hide behind the First Amendment.''

David Touretzky, a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist and fellow Scientology gadfly, says that Henson tends to incriminate himself in his encounters with Scientologists -- often providing church officials with legal ammunition they later use against him.

Henson's legal strategy has been criticized as well. Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that Henson refused to let the civil liberties nonprofit represent him, choosing instead to have a court-appointed attorney. Henson contests Cohn's claim -- ''I've never been offered help from the EFF,'' he says -- but just last week, he once again confounded his fans by failing to show up at his sentencing hearing, where he could have been sent to jail for a year.

So where is Keith Henson and what is he up to? In a telephone interview from Canada -- where he's applying for political asylum -- Henson explained why he played hooky from the hearing and what he hopes to achieve by moving his case forward from abroad.

You're now a fugitive from justice -- why?

I actually came up here for a different reason. I came up here to picket for another cause. But while I was here, a bunch of people were trolling on the Net, talking about my coming up here as a political refugee. And there was so much trolling and so much interest that we said, ''Why not?'' So I stayed over an extra day and we checked with Guidy Mamann, who is apparently a top immigration lawyer in Canada. We chatted for a while, and I filled out the paperwork. He fired up a Web browser, found some stories and said this was a viable case. So I blew off [the California court] and I've already paid [Mamann] a retainer to deal with this from up here.

Why not stay and fight from the States?

Well, I would have gotten a certain amount of PR and done a certain amount of damage to [the church] had I gone back and gone to jail there. But there's a justification for being here. In spite of the fact that there's more risk and that it generates even more criminal problems for me, nonetheless, being here has the potential to generate more heat on Scientology.

Forever. If the U.S. government decides that what I did was not within the framework of free speech, if the [U.S.] State Department supports the government of Riverside County in what I'm arguing is an abuse of human rights, then I ain't going back.

What's the goal of your efforts?

The ultimate goal is to reform or completely destroy Scientology. It's completely undemocratic.