Related
Advertisements *
Elsewhere
Subscribe: RSS
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Subscribe: Email
![]() |
![]() Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Most Popular
- Jim Jones plotted cyanide deaths years before Jonestown
- Eight arrested in KKK-related killing, police say
- Polygamist Group Seeks Safe Haven In Colorado
- Dena Schlosser, mom who cut off baby’s arms, moving to outpatient care
- Parents in prayer-death case, Dale and Leilani Neumann, forced to close coffee shop
- Ayah Pin, leader of Sky Kingdom cult, living in Thailand
- Judge won’t stop hearing on FLDS sect land sale
- Thousands of polygamous sect members show up for court hearing
- Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs faces new sex assault charge
- Australia: Kingdom of Yahweh sect declares itself above law and constitution
2 ex-senior members of Aum tell all
Two former senior members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, both defendants appealing rulings on their participation in the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, have sent The Yomiuri Shimbun letters from a detention center in Katsushika Ward, Tokyo, to criticize the former cult leader Chizuo Matsumoto, better known as Shoko Asahara.
A total of 11 people have been charged in the case and all are being held at the detention center.
Kenichi Hirose, 40, the cult’s former so-called science and technology vice minister, has been sentenced to death by the High Court. He wrote, “Facing the grave fact that 12 people were killed and many were seriously injured, it is impossible to feel any objection toward receiving the death sentence.”
Shigero Sugimoto, 45, the cult’s former so-called home affairs vice minister, who was one of the leading members of the cult and Matsumoto’s chauffeur, disparaged his one-time leader, writing that Matsumoto could not communicate with his attorneys. “We, his former disciples, also have been detained for a long time, but we’re not in Asahara’s condition. It means his spirituality is inferior to ours.”
Hirose, who helped release the sarin gas on the Marunouchi subway line, graduated at the top of his class from Waseda University’s applied physics department before entering graduate school, and later joined the cult.
“Matsumoto was said to have the power to eliminate people’s evil deeds. I could only take his instruction to release the gas as salvation. That it was murder according to common sense did not occur to me,” he said.
Sugimoto–who drove Yasuo Hayashi, 47, to release the gas on the Hibiya subway line–has been sentenced to death and now waiting for an appeal. He wrote a 22-page letter to The Yomiuri Shimbun.
In the letter, Sugimoto avoided expressing any feelings on the incident or toward the victims, writing, “I can’t write such things easily.”
He wrote about the group, saying, “It shouldn’t continue to exist” and the current executives, who were involved in arming the group, “do not speak the truth and are fooling believers who know nothing.”
Share this
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
Article and Site Tools
» PermaLink to: 2 ex-senior members of Aum tell all Need a shorter link? You can remove everything after the final / » More news articles + news archive on Aum Shinrikyo » More religion and cult news Subscribe (RSS / Email) [What is RSS?] » RSS News Feed - All Topics: Religion News Blog RSS Feed » RSS News Feed - Single Topic: Aum Shinrikyo » Headlines by Email: Daily Religion News Blog Headlines |
More Article Tools
Bookmark / Tag: Del.icio.us Bookmark / Tag: Furl Save this article Email this article Print this article [Temporarily out of order] More Information Books about Aum Shinrikyo Relevant books (and other goodies) |



