Court shoots down Asahara retrial

The Supreme Court has rejected a plea for a retrial for Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara, who is on death row for masterminding the 1995 deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system as well as other crimes, sources said Wednesday.

The top court’s first petty bench reached the decision Monday over the petition filed by Asahara’s 29-year-old second daughter in November 2008, the sources said. Asahara’s real name is Chizuo Matsumoto.
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One of Asahara’s daughters in 2008 requested a retrial based on testimony in another trial in which the defendant repudiated an earlier statement that he had been directed by the Aum chief to manufacture sarin.

That defendant instead placed the blame for the attack on another high-level cult member, who is now dead.

Two lower courts rejected the daughter’s petition last year and the Japanese Supreme Court followed suit Monday, sources told Kyodo.
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