Image copyright AFP Image caption Shoko Asahara headed the Aum Shinrikyo cult

Seven members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult which carried out a deadly chemical attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 have been executed, including cult leader Shoko Asahara. The "guru" with his wild hair and unkempt beard, once led up to 10,000 followers, including some who in 1995 targeted the Tokyo subway in a shocking chemical attack that killed 13 people and injured thousands more. Asahara, 63, a partially blind former yoga instructor, believed that the United States would attack Japan with nuclear weapons, and that only cult members would survive World War III. But it was the Tokyo subway attack on March 20, 1995, and the images of rush-hour commuters lying dead or staggering from the effects of sarin, that shocked the nation and woke it up to the dangers of a cult that was based on a huge commune at the foot of Mount Fuji. Born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955, Asahara founded Aum Shinrikyo, or Supreme Truth, in the mid-1980s and it attracted young people disillusioned with the modern materialistic way of life.
Japan executes former Aum Shinrikyo leader Shoko Asahara and six other main members of Aum Shinrikyo, who led the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, by hanging.