Japanese police stand guard as journalists (right) gather outside the Tokyo Detention Centre where three former Aum Supreme Truth doomsday cult members were executed in Tokyo. — AFP photos
TOKYO: Japan yesterday executed the last members of the cult sentenced to death for their role in the fatal 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, weeks after the group’s leader was hanged.
The execution of the six Aum Shinrikyo members, years after they were put on death row, draws a line under the horrific attack which shocked the world and prompted national soul-searching over the group and its crimes.
“Today the state executed six people,” Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said at a press conference.
“I ordered the executions after extremely careful consideration.”
This combo of file photos received via Jiji Press and compiled shows (top left to right) former Aum Supreme Truth doomsday cult member Yasuo Hayashi, Kazuaki Okazaki, one of the subway gas attackers Masato Yokoyama; and (bottom left to right) Kenichi Hirose, Satoru Hashimoto, a guard for cult leader Shoko Asahara; and Toru Toyoda, at undisclosed locations in Japan.
In all, 13 Aum members, including the cult’s near-blind leader Shoko Asahara, were on death row for crimes including the 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo’s subway.
Local media said authorities wanted the death sentences against the Aum members to be carried out before Japan’s emperor abdicates next year, when a new imperial era will begin.
Since the Aum’s crimes were committed during the Heisei era of the current emperor, authorities wanted the executions complete before the new era begins, local media reported.
Some of the Aum’s victims said it would be hard to simply move on.
“With the 13 members executed, perhaps the case is closed from the point of view of criminal justice,” Shizue Takahashi, whose husband was killed in the subway attack, told reporters.
“(But) the damage done to the victims continues even after the executions. I find it very hard.”
The Aum gained international infamy with the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway during rush hour, which killed 13 people and injured thousands more.
Members of the group released the chemical in liquid form at five points throughout the subway network, and soon commuters began struggling to breathe, staggering from trains with their eyes watering.
Others keeled over, foaming at the mouth, with blood streaming from their noses.
The attack plunged the capital into chaos, and prompted a crackdown on the cult’s headquarters in the foothills of Mount Fuji, where authorities discovered a plant capable of producing enough sarin to kill millions.
Aum members, including those executed this month, were also convicted of crimes including an additional sarin attack in the town of Matsumoto the year before the Tokyo attack, and the murder of an anti-cult lawyer and his family.
Many of the group’s members remain in prison.
The 13 cult members spent years on death row as prosecutors investigated their crimes, and some activists opposed the executions, fearing the members would be elevated to the status of martyrs. — AFP