• 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.