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Japan cult guru to hang for subway attack
A former Japanese cult guru was sentenced to hang on Friday for masterminding a sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo subway trains in 1995 that killed 12, sickened thousands and shattered Japan's myth of public safety.
"His crimes did not stop at the murder of specific individuals but expanded into indiscriminate acts of terrorism," said Judge Shoji Ogawa. "I sentence the defendant to death," Ogawa said after Asahara stood to hear the verdict that concluded the eight-year trial. Eight guards had to help him rise at the judge's order to stand. The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public, accustomed to crime-free streets. Aum's arsenal including sarin, first developed by the Nazis, raised concern worldwide about the ease with which biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction could be made. "These actions plunged Japan and the world into deep fear," the judge said, calling the crimes "merciless, vicious and brutal". Japan's fears of terrorism have risen since the September 2001 attacks in the United States and were heightened by the dispatch this month of Japanese troops to help rebuild Iraq. About 5,500 people were injured, some permanently, when members of the doomsday cult released sarin in Tokyo rush-hour trains on March 20, 1995. Asahara, handcuffed and clad in a black sweatsuit, his once-flowing black locks and beard now cut short and flecked with grey, muttered and smiled as he was led into the court room. He had pleaded not guilty but never testified and made mostly incoherent remarks in the courtroom during the trial, including babbling English words. In a statement that took hours to read, the judge said Asahara ordered the 1989 murder of anti-Aum lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his wife and child, and conspired in a 1994 sarin attack in central Japan that killed seven, as well as in the 1995 subway assault. Tokyo police mobilised 400 officers throughout the capital for the sentencing and even organised a fake motorcade to divert media attention when Asahara was being transported to the court. Lawyers for Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, immediately filed an appeal, starting a new legal process that could take another decade to complete. The defence team then resigned, Kyodo news agency said. ARMAGEDDON Survivors said even a death sentence for Asahara would not bring them relief. "Even though the verdict has been handed down, it won't change our feelings," said a pale, red-eyed Fusae Kobayashi, who lost her son Yutaka, 23, in the 1994 sarin attack. "This is only one point on the road." Asahara set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings and attracting, at its peak, at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, among them graduates of some of the nation's elite universities. The pudgy, nearly blind guru predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland. He also claimed to have travelled forward in time to 2006 and talked to people then about what World War Three had been like. Asahara and other cult members ran for parliament in 1990 but won only a smattering of votes. "After failing badly in the national election, Asahara turned to arming the cult and eventually came to desire to rule Japan and become a king," Judge Ogawa said. After the election, Aum set up a huge commune-like complex at the foot of Mount Fuji where members not only studied his mystical teachings and practised bizarre rituals but also built an arsenal of weapons including the sarin used in the subway attack. The attack prompted the police + who came under fire for failing to prevent it + and the military to beef up their capability to deal with chemical and biological attacks. Aum, which admitted involvement in the gassing, later changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. "We express again our deep apologies to the victims and bereaved families," the group said on Friday on its home page. "We declare that we will etch this death verdict deeply into our hearts and make further efforts to compensate the victims." The group's current leaders say it poses no threat now, but the Japanese
authorities disagree and keep its membership of about 1,600 under surveillance.
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