Japan executes cult leader, followers to close chapter on shocking crime
TOKYO — The executions Friday of a doomsday cult leader and six of his followers closed a chapter on one of Japan’s most shocking crimes, the poison gas attack on rush-hour commuters in Tokyo’s subway that killed 13 people and sickened more than 6,000.
The attack in 1995 woke up a relatively safe country to the risk of urban terrorism. The ensuing raid on the cult’s compound near Mount Fuji riveted Japan, as 2,000 police officers approached with a canary in a bird cage.
Shoko Asahara, the bearded, self-proclaimed guru who had recruited scientists and others to his cult, was found two months later, hiding in a compartment in a building ceiling.
The executions of the 63-year-old Asahara and the six cult members were announced by the Justice Ministry after they had been hanged — as is the practice in Japan. Two major newspapers issued extra editions and handed them out at train stations.
“This gave me peace of mind,” Kiyoe Iwata, who lost her daughter in the subway attack, told broadcaster NHK. “I have always been wondering why it had to be my daughter and why she had to be killed. Now, I can pay a visit to her grave and tell her of this.”
The executions were a long time coming, but they were expected as the last trial in the case had been completed and some of the condemned convicts had been transferred to other prisons earlier this year. Six other cult members remain on death row.
The subway attack was the most notorious of the cult’s crimes, which was blamed for 27 deaths in all.
Named Aum Shinrikyo, or Supreme Truth, it amassed an arsenal of chemical, biological and conventional weapons to carry out Asahara’s escalating criminal orders in anticipation of an apocalyptic showdown with the government. Japan’s justice minister, who approved the hangings on Tuesday, said she doesn’t take executions lightly but felt these were justified because of the unprecedented seriousness of the crimes the seven committed.
“The fear, pain and sorrow of the victims, survivors and their families — because of the heinous cult crimes — must have been so severe, and that is beyond my imagination,” Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa told a news conference.
She said the crime affected not only Japan but also sowed fear abroad.
Six of the seven, including Asahara, had been implicated in the subway attack. They included three scientists who led the production of the sarin gas and a man who drove a getaway vehicle.
The seven executions in one day were the most since Japan began releasing info on executions in 1998.
Japan hangs several people in an average year but keeps the executions secretive. The country started disclosing the names of the executed and their locations only 11 years ago. Those executed learn their fate only when they are taken to the gallows. There are 117 convicts on death row.