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Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.</s>Japan has executed the last six members of the doomsday cult that perpetrated the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

The six men were hanged Thursday morning, said Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa.

All 13 members of the group Aum Shinrikyo who were on death row have now been executed, after Chizuo Matsumoto, the cult's former leader who went by the name Shoko Asahara, and six others were hanged on July 6.

The attack killed 13 people and injured at least 5,800, shattering the nation's myth of public safety.

The Aum Shinrikyo, or Aum Supreme Truth cult, which mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings, staged a series of crimes including simultaneous sarin gas attacks on subway trains during rush hour in March 1995. Sarin, a nerve gas, was originally developed by the Nazis.

Kamikawa called it a terrorist attack that even terrified people overseas. She said at a news conference that the six executed Thursday had collaborated with Asahara and other cult members systematically to conduct an unprecedentedly heinous crime that should never be repeated.

The cult had claimed 10,000 members in Japan and 30,000 in Russia. It has disbanded, though nearly 2,000 people follow its rituals in three splinter groups, monitored by authorities.</s>The Aum's 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway during rush hour killed 13 people and injured thousands more.

Thursday's executions come after authorities hanged 'guru' Shoko Asahara and six of his one-time followers earlier this month, after years on death row. (Photo: File | AFP)

Tokyo: Several members of a cult that carried out a deadly 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo's subway were executed on Thursday, Japanese media said, weeks after the group's leader was hanged.

Public broadcaster NHK said at least two members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult had been executed on Thursday, while other media did not specify a number.

There was no immediate official confirmation.

Thursday's executions come after authorities hanged "guru" Shoko Asahara and six of his one-time followers earlier this month, after years on death row.

Those executions left six remaining Aum members on death row.

Japan is one of the few developed nations to retain the death penalty, and public support for it remains high despite international criticism.

The Aum's 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway during rush hour killed 13 people and injured thousands more.

It plunged the massive 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 have been convicted of an additional sarin attack in the town of Matsumoto the year before the Tokyo attack, as well as the murder of an anti-cult lawyer and his family.

Despite the crackdown on the Aum, it was never formally banned.

It officially disowned Asahara in 2000 and renamed itself Aleph, but experts say the former guru retained a strong influence before his execution.</s>TOKYO: Japan executed two more members of the doomsday cult group Aum Shinrikyo on Thursday that perpetrated the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, public broadcaster NHK said.

Chizuo Matsumoto, the cult's former leader who went by the name Shoko Asahara, and six other members of the group were executed on July 6.

There are four remaining members on death row.

The Aum Shinrikyo, or Aum Supreme Truth cult, which mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings, staged a series of crimes including simultaneous sarin gas attacks on subway trains during rush hour in March 1995. Sarin, a nerve gas, was originally developed by the Nazis.</s>The last six members of a Japanese doomsday cult have been executed for a series of crimes in the 1990s including a deadly sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subways that killed 13 people.

Thirteen members of the Aum Shinrikyo group had received death sentences.

The first seven, including leader Chizuo Matsumoto, who went by the name Shoko Asahara, were hanged about three weeks ago.

The cult, which envisioned overthrowing the government, amassed an arsenal of chemical, biological and conventional weapons in anticipation of an apocalyptic showdown.

Named Aum Shinrikyo, or Supreme Truth, was blamed for 27 deaths before authorities raided its compound near Mount Fuji in 1995 and captured Asahara nearly two months later.

The group's most notorious crime was the subway attack in 1995 that killed 13 and sickened 6,000 people and caused panic during the morning commute.

The attack woke a relatively safe country to the risk of urban terrorism.

Cult members used umbrellas to puncture plastic bags, releasing sarin, a deadly nerve agent, inside subway cars just as the trains approached the Kasumigaseki station, Japan's main government district.

Commuters poured out of stations, and the streets were soon filled with troops in Hazmat suits and people being treated outside.

In the lead up to the attacks, the cult even tried out their chemical weaponry in Australia at Banjawarn Station — a sheep station they owned in the remote Western Australia goldfields.

Following the Tokyo subway attack, a police investigation of the station found traces of sarin gas in the carcasses of 24 sheep in a remote part of the property and in the surrounding soil.

Four of the six executed on Thursday released sarin on the subway.

The two others were convicted in other crimes, including the 1989 murders of an anti-Aum lawyer and his wife and one-year-old baby and a 1994 sarin attack in the city of Matsumoto in central Japan, which killed seven people and injured more than 140.

An eighth victim in Matsumoto died after being in a coma for a decade.

In announcing the execution of the final six members, who were all on death row, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa repeatedly said the executions were carried out after careful deliberation and in consideration of the fear, pain and sadness inflicted on many of the victims of the cult's crimes.

She said Japan was not ready to abolish the death penalty despite overseas pressure.

"The majority is of the opinion that for heinous crimes, executions are inevitable," Ms Kamikawa said.

"The fact that there has been no end to heinous crimes such as murders and murder robberies, we feel that it is inevitable that for the extremely reprehensible crimes we carry out these executions."

The executions were announced only after they had happened, as is the practice in Japan.

Asahara, the bearded, nearly blind, self-proclaimed guru recruited scientists and others to his cult, attracting people who were disillusioned with a modern, materialistic lifestyle.

During an eight-year trial, he talked incoherently, occasionally babbling in broken English, and never acknowledged his responsibility or offered meaningful explanations.

The cult once claimed 10,000 members in Japan and 30,000 in Russia.

It has disbanded, though nearly 2,000 people follow its rituals in three splinter groups, monitored by authorities.</s>TOKYO - Japan on Thursday 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.

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.

But victims of the group’s attacks welcomed the execution of Asahara and six other Aum members earlier this month.

One man who was injured in the subway sarin attack told AFP he felt “the world had become slightly brighter”.

Japan is one of the few developed nations to retain the death penalty, and public support for it remains high despite international criticism, including from rights group Amnesty International.

“The taking of a life in retribution is never the answer,” the group’s East Asia researcher Hiroka Shoji said in a statement Thursday.

But Kamikawa said it was “not appropriate under the current circumstances to abolish the death penalty.”

“I think we can’t avoid capital punishment for those who have committed extremely heinous crimes,” she said.

Asahara developed his cult in the 1980s, and at one point the wild-haired “guru” had at least 10,000 followers, including the doctors and engineers who produced the group’s chemical agents.

Despite the crackdown on the Aum, it was never formally banned.

It officially disowned Asahara in 2000 and renamed itself Aleph, but experts say the former guru retained a strong influence before his execution.

Asahara’s execution set off a battle among his surviving family members for his remains, with his wife and several children who are in successor cults to the Aum seeking to obtain them.

He was cremated days after his execution, and his youngest daughter, who has broken with the Aum’s successor cults, said she would receive his ashes, which will reportedly be scattered at sea to avoid creating a pilgrimage site for Asahara’s followers.</s>TOKYO — The last six members of a Japanese doomsday cult who remained on death row were executed Thursday for a series of crimes in the 1990s including a sarin gas attack on Tokyo subways that killed 13 people.

Thirteen members of the group had received death sentences. The first seven, including cult leader Shoko Asahara, were hanged about three weeks ago. Japan has never executed so many people in one month, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said. She called their crimes unprecedentedly heinous and said they should never be repeated.

The cult, which envisioned overthrowing the government, amassed an arsenal of chemical, biological and conventional weapons in anticipation of an apocalyptic showdown. Named Aum Shinrikyo, or Supreme Truth, it was blamed for 27 deaths before authorities raided its compound near Mount Fuji in 1995 and captured Asahara nearly two months later.

The group’s most notorious crime was the March 20, 1995, subway attack that sickened 6,000 people and sowed panic during the morning commute. The attack woke up a relatively safe country to the risk of urban terrorism.

Cult members used umbrellas to puncture plastic bags, releasing sarin, a deadly nerve agent, inside subway cars just as the trains approached the Kasumigaseki station, Japan’s main government district. Commuters poured out of stations, and the streets were soon filled with troops in Hazmat suits and people being treated outside.

Kamikawa said it was a terrorist attack that terrified people even outside Japan.

Four of the six executed Thursday released sarin on the subway. The two others were convicted in other crimes, including the 1989 murders of an anti-Aum lawyer and his wife and 1-year-old baby and a 1994 sarin attack in the city of Matsumoto in central Japan, which killed seven people and injured more than 140. An eighth victim in Matsumoto died after being in a coma for a decade.

The executions were announced only after they had happened, as is the practice in Japan.

Asahara, whose original name was Chizuo Matsumoto, founded Aum Shinrikyo in 1984. The bearded, self-proclaimed guru recruited scientists and others to his cult, attracting people who were disillusioned with a modern, materialistic lifestyle.
• Japan executes doomsday cult leader and six followers for 1995 subway attack
• Japan executes cult leader over sarin gas attacks, but his ashes remain in custody

During an eight-year trial, he talked incoherently, occasionally babbling in broken English, and never acknowledged his responsibility or offered meaningful explanations.

The cult once claimed 10,000 members in Japan and 30,000 in Russia. It has disbanded, though nearly 2,000 people follow its rituals in three splinter groups, monitored by authorities.</s>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan executed six more members of the doomsday cult group Aum Shinrikyo on Thursday that perpetrated the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

All 13 members of the cult that were on death row have now been executed, after Chizuo Matsumoto, the cult’s former leader who went by the name Shoko Asahara, and six other members of the group were hanged on July 6.

The attack killed 13 people and injured at least 5,800 people, some permanently, shattering the nation’s myth of public safety.

The Aum Shinrikyo, or Aum Supreme Truth cult, which mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings, staged a series of crimes including simultaneous sarin gas attacks on subway trains during rush hour in March 1995. Sarin, a nerve gas, was originally developed by the Nazis.

“It was unprecedented level of extreme and serious crimes which must not happen again and terrified not only people in Japan but also foreign countries and shook the society,” Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa told a news conference.</s>Japan on Thursday 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.

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."</s>TOKYO — Japan on Thursday executed six more members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, the perpetrator of the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, public broadcaster NHK said.

All 13 members of the cult who were on death row have now been executed, after Shoko Asahara, the cult's former leader, Shoko Asahara, and six other members of the group were hanged on July 6.

The attack killed 13 people and injured hundreds more, shattering the nation's myth of public safety.

Aum Shinrikyo, or Aum Supreme Truth, mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings. It staged a series of crimes, including simultaneous sarin gas attacks on subway trains during rush hour in March 1995. Sarin, a nerve gas, was originally developed by the Nazis.
The six remaining cult members of Aum Shinrikyo who perpetrated the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack and were on death row are executed by hanging.