Bleyer's Honours Outlined
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday June 20, 1989
Baron Neuman of Kara Bagh, the holder of 850 honours and 18 honorary doctorates, is facing charges over the formation of a "sovereign State" in the Snowy Mountains.
The baron, 61, the founder and Supreme Lord of Aeterna Lucina, told the Supreme Court yesterday that he had issued a Declaration of Independence for the "spiritual and idealistic" State, which had been established near Cooma.
His wife was the Minister of Lands and had issued certificates of title to the State's land, he said.
He agreed that the issuing of these certificates had been invalid under NSW law, but "not under our laws".
The baron was giving evidence in the case of the hair clinic director Mr Roland Bleyer, who is suing Channel 9, Trans Media Productions Pty Ltd and the journalist Michael Willesee for damages for alleged defamation.
Mr Bleyer alleges that the Willesee program on August 9, 1985, falsely imputed that he had damaged the cause of cell therapy treatment for children with Down's syndrome by offering to establish a trial clinic.
He alleges that the report also imputed, among other things, that he was insincere and had questionable motives in promoting the treatment.
The baron, whose occupation is Grand Master of Orders of Chivalry, is also the Grand Master of the Order of the White Cross. He said he was a founder member of the Knights of the Round Table, an order for the protection of the environment.
He said he made Mr Bleyer a Knight of the White Cross, a member of the Most Noble Order of Aeterna Luciana, and had recommended that Mr Bleyer be awarded two honorary degrees from a Sicilian university.
Mr Bleyer is also a Knight of Malta.
The baron said the capital of Aeterna Lucina, known as Vitama, is in Sydney but its citizens are all over the world. It was a "world State", he said.
Under cross-examination by Mr Bruce McClintock, for Channel 9, he agreed that the land titles had been issued to a number of people. He denied that they had been sold.
"They were the contributions the members had to make for a certain portion of land to be settled upon and it is restricted to the members of the order,"he said.
The money they paid was used "to build roads, fences, everything there", he said.
He said he had created the State "to be able to appear before the World Court in matters ... for example, the killing of whales and the protection of the environment".
He agreed that he was facing criminal charges in relation to Aeterna Lucina. "I don't know if they are fraud charges. They may be," he said.
He declined to answer further questions on the grounds that it may incriminate him.
The baron, who changed his name by deed poll from Paul Robert Neuman to Paul Baron Neuman, said he had received the title of Baron Neuman of Kara Bagh from the exiled King of Afghanistan.
The baron said he had not paid "one cent" to the king for the title and had never visited Kara Bagh, in Afghanistan.
He denied that the title held him out as being entitled to a European peerage.
It was not phony, he said.
"I am a poor man and I never had money before and I never will have money,"he said.
Justice Maxwell refused his request to withdraw from being a witness.
The baron said he had received an honorary professorship for chivalric matters from the Diandera University in Palermo. He said he had never been there but the institution did exist because he had received correspondence from it.
He had received a doctorate in philosophy and divinity from the Celtic University in London, with a thesis on "the mathematical and spiritual state of the existing universe".
He also said he had been decorated for bravery as a torpedo boat commander in World War II, and denied that he would have been too young at 17 to have held the rank of commander.
He said the world-wide honours he had received - about 850 of them - were genuine, in recognition of his work.
In further evidence, Dr John Roach, who is treating Mr Bleyer's daughter, said cell therapy had produced some remarkable improvements with Down's syndrome children, although he could not find a medical explanation.
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald