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Ex-AUM cult member releases poems before top court’s death sentence ruling

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Friday November 18, 2011

Former senior AUM Shinrikyo member Tomomasa Nakagawa, who was sentenced to death in district and high court rulings over crimes including the group’s deadly sarin gas attacks, has written three poems describing his feelings, released by his lawyer before the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal on Nov. 18.

Mainichi Daily News says

The poems by 49-year-old Nakagawa are accompanied by explanations that he provided to his lawyer, in parentheses.

A translation of one of the poems reads, “I have cast myself in the words I’m leaving behind, so I can speak to another me.” (Nakagawa is writing a collection of notes with the help of a psychiatrist and others so that there will be no more people like himself.)

Mainichi Daily News reports that

The Supreme Court ruling in Nakagawa’s case brings to a close a series of court hearings over the November 1989 murder of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his family. He is the 12th AUM member to receive the death penalty.
On Nov. 21, former AUM cultist Seiichi Endo, who was also handed death penalties in district and high court rulings, will receive a Supreme Court ruling on his case. If the top court rejects his appeal, it will bring to an end the trials over the AUM incidents.