Related
Translate
Previous entry: Lion kills man who said God would save him
Next entry: Law restricting funeral protests to get its 1st test
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- World’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, ministry ship Doulos, to stop sailing
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
- Australian police take up complaints about Scientology
- Born in U.S., a Radical Cleric Inspires Terror
- ‘World’s biggest animal sacrifice’ begins
- Pakistan Militants Bomb CD Shop For Selling ‘Jesus Film’
Ex Aum Shinrikyo cult leader appeals execution
More articles on this topic: Aum ShinrikyoTOKYO (AP) – Defense lawyers filed an appeal Monday for a former cult leader sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing that killed 12 people, a news report said.
Shoko Asahara was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to hang for masterminding the attack, in which members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult released deadly sarin gas on trains converging on the city’s government district. Besides the dead, thousands were hospitalized.
Asahara’s lawyers filed an appeal with the Supreme Court after the Tokyo High Court threw out a similar appeal in March, the Kyodo News agency reported.
His lawyers argued that their client suffers from pathological mental stress caused by confinement and was unfit for trial.
The lawyers could not be reached late Monday to confirm the report.
The nearly blind former leader, who once commanded a powerful group with about 40,000 members, mumbled incoherently during his trial, interrupting sessions with bizarre outbursts in English. Last month, a court-appointed psychiatrist said Asahara may have been feigning mental illness.
Asahara has also been convicted of plotting a 1994 gas attack in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto that killed seven people, the kidnapping and murder of an anti-cult lawyer and his family, and other slayings.
About a dozen other Aum Shinrikyo leaders have been sentenced to death, although none has been executed.
Three members wanted in connection with the subway gassing remain at large.
At its height, the cult claimed 10,000 followers in Japan and another 30,000 in Russia. Now named Aleph, the group has about 6,500 members and is under surveillance by Japan’s Public Safety Agency.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: Lion kills man who said God would save him Next entry: Law restricting funeral protests to get its 1st test
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
