DOOMSDAY CULT KILLER IS EXECUTED 23 YRS ON
SEVEN followers of a Doomsday cult who mounted a deadly gas attack on the Tokyo subway have been hanged.
First to the scaffold yesterday was the leader of Aum Shinrikyo, partially blind Shoko Asahara, 63. The podgy ex-yoga teacher was behind the attack that killed 13 with the nerve agent sarin.
More than 5,800 were injured in the 1995 horror.
Images of bodies, many in busi- ness suits, sprawled on platforms stunned the country.
Asahara was sentenced to die in 2004 for the subway attacks and other crimes. He denied guilt.
After the executions, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said the attacks had “plunged people not only in Japan into deadly fear.”
Shizue Takahashi, whose subway worker husband died in the attack, said of Asahara: “I think it’s right he was executed.” Asahara