The Tokyo High Court sentenced a former doomsday cult member to death yesterday for a 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways, overturning a lower court ruling condemning him to life in prison.
Yoshihiro Inoue, 34, was one of several Aum Shinri Kyo agents accused of being directly involved in the attack, in which cult members riding five subway trains converging on the capital's government district punctured plastic bags filled with sarin nerve gas. Twelve people died and thousands were injured, some of whom continue to suffer after-effects.
Tokyo High Court spokesman Koji Suwabe confirmed that Judge Toshio Yamada had sentenced Inoue to death, but could not provide further details.
Inoue's lawyers immediately appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Though Inoue did not spread sarin on the train, the court found that he bears as much responsibility for the gassing as any of the attackers because as a supervisor he made sure the crimes were carried out, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The earlier lower court ruling said Inoue only served as a backup in the attack.
Inoue, a close aid to former cult guru Shoko Asahara, is the 13th member of the cult to receive a death sentence. Asahara, 49, was sentenced in February to hang for masterminding the attack and other crimes.
Asahara allegedly ordered the gas attack to start an Armageddon he preached only his followers would survive.
The judge said Inoue proposed the March 21, 1995, nerve gas attack at a meeting with Asahara and several of his top lieutenants.
Aum claimed 10,000 followers in Japan and 30,000 in Russia at its height. Police have cracked down on the cult, putting it under close surveillance. It has since changed its name to Aleph and currently has an estimated 6,500 members.
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
PRESSURE: Trump is expected to demand that Tokyo raise its defense spending, but Japan’s new foreign minister said the amount is less important than how it is spent Japan plans to show its determination to further build up its defense to rapidly adapt to changing warfare realities and growing tension in the region when US President Donald Trump visits Tokyo next week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is also finalizing a purchase package, including US pickups, soybeans and gas, to present to Trump, but would not commit to any new defense spending target at the meeting, a source with knowledge of the preparations said. The two leaders are to sit down in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday next week during Trump’s first
RSS