Tag: Makoto Hirata

Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, has resigned in the wake of an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse.

Sometimes the Prosperity Gospel scam does work. But guess who gets rich of it?

A former Aum Shinrikyo cult member who surrendered after 17 years on the run has now been sentenced to 9 years in prison for his participation in three cult-related crimes.

Cult leader Victor Barnard, who faces abuse charges, is missing.

Plus: The fictional True Detective series may have been inspired by the Hosanna Church child abuse case.

Doomsday cult member Makoto Hirata is charged with involvement in the 1995 abduction and death of a notary official.

Hirata, who in January 2011 handed himself in to police after 17 years on the run, is also charged with involvement in the firebombing of a Tokyo condominium.

The Tokyo District Court sentenced former Aum Shinrikyo member Akemi Saito to 14 months in prison Tuesday for harboring fugitive cultist Makoto Hirata for more than 14 years.

A woman who harbored Aum Shinrikyo cult member Makoto Hirata for 17 years faces a two-year prison term.

Akemi Saito, herself a former member of the cult, pled guilty in court Tuesday to sheltering the former fugitive.

Former AUM Shinrikyo cult member Makoto Hirata, 46, arrested for kidnapping, will be served a fresh arrest warrant as early as Jan. 31 for alleged involvement in a 1995 bombing in Tokyo.

Meanwhile another former Aum Shinikyo cult member was charged with harboring Hirata while knowing he was a fugitive.

A senior member of Aum Shinrikyo — the doomsday cult behind the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo subways — has been charged in a kidnapping case, one of dozens of cult-related crimes in the 1990s.

Prosecutors charged Makoto Hirata with “unlawful capture” and confinement Friday in connection with the fatal abduction of a lawyer.

Japanese investigators are set to question Aum Shinrikyo guru Shoko Asahara over the role Makoto Hirata, a former member of the cult who turned himself in to Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Dec. 31 after 17 years on the run, played in the abduction and death of a Tokyo notary office clerk in 1995, sources said Monday.