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.

They were released by his lawyer before the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal on Nov. 18.

The Tokyo District Court back in May rejected a second 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 and other crimes.

Japanese authorities on Monday raided buildings used by the doomsday cult behind the 1995 deadly sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway, news reports said.

The 16th anniversary of a deadly sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system was commemorated Sunday with a moment of silence.

The gas attack was carried out by members of Aum Shinrikyo, a destructive doomsday cult.

The death sentence for Masami Tsuchiya, a former senior member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult who was convicted over a series of crimes committed by group members, has become final, judicial sources said Tuesday.

Japan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down an appeal from Masami Tsuchiya, a former senior member of the AUM Shinrikyo cult who was sentenced to death over a series of crimes committed by group members, including the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

The National Police Agency said Monday it has confirmed that a total of 6,583 people fell victim to the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system and seven other crimes committed by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, as it closed Friday accepting their applications for government relief.

It means that the Japanese agency has newly found 1,000 or more victims.

A man suspected of fatally stabbing his ex-wife, a follower of a group that split from the AUM Shinrikyo cult, has told police he thought that the killing would enable him to get his daughter back.

Nearly 6,000 people, or about 91 percent, of eligible victims of the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and other crimes committed by the Aum Shinrikyo cult had applied for government relief under the law by the end of October, Japan’s National Police Agency has announced.

The government has provided relief payments to the bereaved relatives of 25 people, 101 people who were disabled and 5,658 people who were injured in eight Aum cases, also including the 1994 sarin attack in Nagano Prefecture and the murder of a lawyer and his family in 1989.

Japan’s 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.

Tokyo marked the 15th anniversary Saturday of the sarin nerve gas attack on its subway system by AUM Shinrikyo cult members that left 13 dead and sickened some 6,300.

The cult’s founder Shoko Asahara, 55, and nine other cult members are currently awaiting execution on death row, while three others remain at large.

The number of victims of the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway by the AUM Shinrikyo cult is almost 6,300 in a nationwide police survey — far more than the earlier estimate of over 5,000.

Meanwhile one more fatality has been identified.

In March 1995 members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult carried out its infamous nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

The widow of a man killed in the attack has made a documentary film in which she interviews other people victimized in the sarin attack.

A tip that Aum Shinrikyo might try to disrupt plans by police to probe its activities was received shortly before the cult attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin in 1995, the national police chief at the time revealed in an interview.

A video recording of the interview will be played at a public viewing on March 13, along with interviews with other people involved in the case ahead of the 15th anniversary of the attack.

The death sentence for former senior AUM Shinrikyo cult member Tomomitsu Niimi has been finalized for his roles in 11 crimes killing 26 people.

Japan’s Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s objection the top court’s earlier ruling.

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