Tokyo, Japan - The Japanese doomsday cult charged with a deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system continues to pose a grave threat to the public and could repeat its atrocities, a top Japanese intelligence official said on Thursday.
Takashi Ohizumi, director-general of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, told Reuters in an interview that the cult formerly known as Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth Sect) remained dangerous more than 10 years after the rush hour gas attack that killed 12 and injured thousands.
After a trial lasting nearly a decade, former cult guru Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was sentenced to death by hanging for masterminding the subway attack.
"There are still many followers who have been with the group since the times even before the sarin incident and keep a strong reverence for Asahara," Ohizumi said.
Ohizumi, 60, heads the agency tasked with gathering information related to possible subversive action against Japan.
The cult in 1999 admitted involvement in the attack. The following year it changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders insist the cult is now benign.
But Ohizumi said: "The group still adheres to Asahara's teachings which condone murder. Therefore, we consider that they are still dangerous."
He said live-in cult members number around 650 and about another 1000 are lay members in Japan, and there are about 300 members in Russia. That compares to about 11,400 members in Japan and about 40 000 in Russia in 1995.
Ohizumi said the cult was running yoga schools and other businesses to fund their activities and sign up new recruits.
Absolute leader
He said the group in Japan had kept contact with its fellow cultists in Russia.
"The group in Russia tried to take Asahara back in 2000. But of course, they failed to do so," he said without elaborating.
The death sentence for Asahara, 51, was confirmed in September when the Supreme Court rejected his appeal.
"The followers were shocked by the news that the death sentence for Asahara was confirmed," Ohizumi said.
"There were some followers who thought about trying to free Asahara to get him back because he is the absolute figure they think they should follow."
The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public and shattered the country's self-image as a haven of public safety.
Fumihiro Joyu, 43, a former spokesman for the cult, became a de facto leader of the group.
But Ohizumi said the group preserved and continued to respect Asahara's teachings.
"For the followers, Asahara is the absolute figure," he said.
"And Joyu's teachings are no different from what Asahara advocated."
Under Asahara, who had predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland, followers submitted to an ascetic communal life and performed rites such as swallowing water and then vomiting it up to "purify" them.
The son of a poor maker of "tatami" straw mats, the chubby, nearly blind Asahara set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings.
Toyko, Japan - A Japanese court has taken the rare step of demanding punishment for lawyers of the doomsday cult guru behind the 1995 subway attack, blaming them for delays in the emotionally charged trial.
The Tokyo High Court filed its demand with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations asking it to take action against Akio Matsushita and Takeshi Matsui, two lawyers for Aum Supreme Truth court founder Shoko Asahara.
It was the first time since 1989 that the Tokyo High Court has sought to punish lawyers, said a court official, who did not know if other courts in Japan had taken similar measures in other cases.
The bar federation is required to punish members within three months unless it challenges the court's demand. The lawyers could face temporary suspension from the bar.
Asahara, a bearded former acupuncturist who preached of a coming violent apocalypse, was convicted of ordering followers to release Nazi-invented sarin nerve gas on rush-hour trains in 1995.
The attack killed 12 people and injured thousands more, making it Japan's worst attack since World War II.
"We filed the procedures today because the two lawyers were responsible for delaying the trial by missing the deadline for submitting an appeal document," the court official said.
The lawyers failed to submit documents in Asahara's appeal trial by an August 2005 deadline as they argued that the guru was mentally unfit and only mumbled nonsense in meetings.
But the High Court said Asahara was sane. The Supreme Court on September 15 threw out Asahara's last chance to escape the gallows, refusing the defense lawyers' motion to resume the trial even though they missed the deadline.
The lawyers were not immediately available for comment.
Toyko, Japan - It's been a difficult month for Aum Shinrikyo. the finalization of the death sentence for its founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, was followed by a nationwide raid on the cult's facilities. And now Aum members are squabbling among themselves over payments to Matsumoto's wife.
Matsumoto, 51, was sentenced to die for crimes that caused the deaths of 27 people, including two sarin nerve gas attacks.
Aum Shinrikyo, which now calls itself Aleph, pays Matsumoto's wife, Tomoko, 400,000 yen a month, ostensibly in fees for the use of paintings that she produced.
In actuality, the money supports Matsumoto's family, sources said.
The money paid to Matsumoto's wife has come under scrutiny by members as the cult is being kept under close watch by public security authorities.
The cult also failed to complete its payments of 960 million yen in compensation to victims of Aum crimes, as determined in 2000.
The amount was due to be paid over a period of five years. However, by the time this deadline elapsed, the cult had paid only 560 million yen, leading the bankruptcy administrator to extend the payment period by three years.
The cult itself has divided into two factions: a breakaway group headed by Fumihiro Joyu, and those who remain loyal to the disgraced former leader.
Ending the payments to Matsumoto's wife was first put forward in August by Joyu, group members said.
However, those loyal to Matsumoto insist that stopping payments would violate the cult's contract with Tomoko. They have since called for a leadership reshuffle.
Tomoko, 48, first received payments for the paintings in December 2002, two months after she was released from prison and joined her children in Ibaraki Prefecture.
She had been given a six-year term for her role in the murder of a former follower.
Tomoko declared that she had severed all ties with the cult, and stipulated that it could not use her paintings of Hindu gods Siva--of whom Chizuo Matsumoto claimed to be a reincarnation--and Vishnu without her permission.
Aleph then agreed to pay monthly fees for the paintings for five years.
The cult uses copies of the paintings to decorate the altar at its headquarters, and further copies are given to followers. Tomoko has the original paintings in her possession.
According to the Joyu group, Joyu told the bankruptcy administrator Tuesday he would persuade the other group to stop paying Tomoko.
The Joyu group also sent 4 million yen to the administrator Wednesday as part of the compensation payment. It also said it will continue to pay compensation to the victims separately from its rival group.
Tokyo, Japan - Japanese security officers today raided 25 offices of the doomsday cult behind the 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attacks, after its founder lost a last appeal against his death sentence.
Television footage showed dozens of officers walking into buildings across Japan of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, including its de facto headquarters in Tokyo's Setagaya ward.
“Since his death sentence was finalised, we are afraid that his followers may possibly plan something illegal,” said a Public Security Intelligence Agency spokesman.
“The agency officers are currently having hearings with Aum members.”
About 250 officers raided the facilities, the spokesman added.
Shoko Asahara, the 51-year-old founder of the cult that attacked the Tokyo subway with nerve gas, lost his final appeal against his death sentence on Friday, meaning he can be executed at any time.
The bearded guru, who ordered Japan's worst ever terror attack which claimed 12 lives, was revered as a god by his sect, whose hardline followers are under constant surveillance.
The security agency raided the sect's facilities to determine what impact yesterday's decision had on his estimated 1650 followers, the spokesman said.
The agency is also keeping a close watch on movements of the followers in case some try to break Asahara out of prison or try to kill themselves when he is executed, he said.
Asahara's lawyers argued that the former acupuncturist was mentally unfit and only mumbled nonsense in meetings.
But Japan's Supreme Court refused a special motion by the defence seeking to resume his appeal trial, meaning Asahara could be hanged at any time.
Tokyo, Japan - A former cult leader who masterminded a poison gas attack on Tokyo subway trains in 1995 had his appeal against the death penalty rejected by Japan's Supreme Court on Friday.
Lawyers for Shoko Asahara, 51, had argued that the former leader of Aum Shinri Kyo, or Supreme Truth Sect, was mentally incompetent and called for the case be suspended.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was found responsible for gassings on Tokyo rush-hour trains that killed 12 and sickened thousands, and was sentenced to death by a Tokyo court in February 2004 for murder and attempted murder.
The attack injured about 5,500 people, some permanently, when members of the cult released sarin, a lethal nerve gas first developed but not used by the Nazis in World War Two.
Japan does announce dates of executions, which are by hanging, in advance of them being carried out.
The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public and shattered the country's self-image as a haven of public safety.
The nearly blind Asahara was also found guilty of other charges including a series of crimes that killed 15 people.
The son of a poor maker of "tatami" straw mats, Asahara graduated from a school for the blind before working as an acupuncturist and amassing wealth with sales of Chinese medicine in the early 1980s.
He later studied yoga and started a school to teach it, going on to set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings.
Under Asahara, who had predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland, followers submitted to an ascetic communal life and performed rites such as swallowing water and then vomiting it up to "purify" them.
At its peak, the cult boasted at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, including some who had studied science at the nation's elite universities.
Raids on the cult's sprawling complexes at the foot of Mount Fuji after the subway attack uncovered stockpiles of high-tech equipment and dangerous chemicals.
Aum Shinri Kyo, which admitted involvement in the subway gassing, later changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders insist the cult is now benign, but Japanese authorities still keep its membership of more than 1,000 under surveillance.
In 2004, a Tokyo university revoked its acceptance of a 20-year-old woman after discovering she was Asahara's daughter, saying her presence could be disruptive.
Tokyo, Japan - Japan's Supreme Court is likely to soon finalise the death penalty for the former leader of a Japanese doomsday cult who masterminded a fatal gas attack on Tokyo subways 10 years ago, his lawyers said on Monday.
The defence team for Shoko Asahara had filed a special appeal to the court in May after the Tokyo High Court rejected appeals that the former guru was mentally unfit to stand trial and that the case should be suspended.
But the lawyers said that following recent media reports regarding the case, the Supreme Court was likely to decide in the coming days to throw out their appeal, paving the way for Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, to be hanged.
Asahara, 51, was found guilty of responsibility for the gas attack that killed 12 and made thousands ill, and sentenced to death by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004.
Kyodo news agency, quoting unnamed legal sources, said the decision was unlikely to be prolonged, while public broadcaster NHK carried a similar report.
Asahara's lawyers reiterated that the former leader of Aum Shinri Kyo, or Supreme Truth Sect, was incompetent and that the case should be suspended so that Asahara can receive medical treatment for his mental condition.
"If the Supreme Court were to reject the special appeal, it would be a wrong judgement that would go down in history for intentionally ignoring the facts," the lawyers said in a statement.
The lawyers said their client has been unable to speak or to communicate with them, rejecting claims that he objected to a high court ruling handed down in March.
The Yomiuri newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, reported on Sunday that Asahara had said: "I'm innocent, I was trapped," after the Tokyo High Court's rejection of his lawyers' appeal, a sign he is mentally fit.
"He does not respond at all to the lawyers and only says: 'un, un' to himself ... It's impossible for him to say: 'I'm innocent,'" his lawyers said.
The gas attack on Tokyo rush-hour trains on March 20, 1995, injured about 5,500 people, some permanently, when members of the cult released sarin, first developed by Nazi Germany.
The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public and shattered the country's self-image as a haven of public safety.
Asahara was also found guilty of other charges including a series of crimes that killed 15 people.
Asahara set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings and attracting, at its peak, at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, including graduates of some of the nation's elite universities.
The nearly blind guru had predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland.
Aum Shinri Kyo, which admitted involvement in the gassing, later changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders insist the cult is now benign, but Japanese authorities still keep its membership of more than 1,000 under surveillance.
Toyko, Japan - The Supreme Court has thrown out an appeal by a former doomsday cult member sentenced to life for murder and his role in a deadly sarin gas attack, a news report said Tuesday.
The court rejected an appeal filed by Noboru Nakamura against his life sentence, Kyodo News agency reported.
Nakamura was convicted in 2001 of the slaying a fellow member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, abducting and killing the relative of another member, and helping the group build a factory to produce lethal sarin gas.
Nakamura was also found guilty of helping commit murder during the cult's sarin attack in June, 1994 in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. That assault, which targeted a dormitory that housed judges handling a cult-related dispute, killed seven people and injured four.
Nakamura said he had only acted as a lookout during the gas attack and did not intend to kill anyone, according to news reports.
The attack preceded a separate 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and sickened thousands.
Now called Aleph, the Aum cult is under surveillance by Japan's public safety agency, which has warned the organization is still a threat.
Raids of cult headquarters and confessions of leading members later revealed the cult had numerous plots to overthrow the government and operated labs to develop chemical and biological weapons.
Group founder Shoko Asahara, the nearly blind self-styled messiah who once claimed more than 10,000 followers, was convicted and sentenced to die in 2004.
Authorities say about 1,650 people in Japan and 300 in Russia continue to believe in Asahara's teachings.
A court official refused to confirm Tuesday's rejection of Nakamura's appeal because it was after hours. The official declined to give his name.
Saitama, Japan - The 17-year-old daughter of AUM Shinrikyo cult founder Shoko Asahara has asked a local court to appoint freelance journalist Shoko Egawa as a guardian for her.
Asahara's fourth daughter has filed a petition with the Kumagaya branch of the Saitama District Court, Hiroshi Watanabe, a lawyer for her, told a news conference. She has dismissed Takeshi Matsumoto, who also serves as a defense lawyer for Asahara, as a guardian for her.
"I wanted to be independent of my family who lives on donations extended by followers, and sever ties with the cult, but my family and Mr. Matsumoto opposed that," her new lawyer quoted her as saying.
The girl had lived with her parents and sisters as well as cult followers, but repeatedly escaped from her home since 2002. She subsequently learned on the Internet about a series of crimes committed by the cult, lawyer Watanabe told the news conference.
The daughter thought it was wrong for her and her family to live on donations from cult followers, and sent an e-mail to Egawa asking the journalist to be a guardian for her.
Egawa said she agreed to support the girl's self-reliance in a bid to rid society of the cult's influence.
Asahara, 51, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, has appealed a high court decision to dismiss his appeal against a death sentence handed down on him by a lower court for masterminding a series of crimes, including subway gassing in March 1995 that left 12 people dead.
Toyko, Japan - Masami Tsuchiya, a former senior member of AUM Shinrikyo, on Thursday appealed a death sentence to the Supreme Court for his role in making sarin and other poisons used in crimes committed by the cult, including the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, his lawyer said.
Last Friday, the Tokyo High Court handed down the capital punishment for the 41-year-old defendant, rejecting his appeal against the death sentence passed on him in January 2004 by the Tokyo District Court, which found him guilty on six out of seven counts, the exception being a charge of hiding two wanted AUM members.
He was found guilty of murder and other crimes that led to the deaths of 20 people.
Toyko, Japan - The current leader of the Aum Supreme Truth cult took 70 followers on a three-day "pilgrimage" to temples, mountains and other sites this month, apparently in a bid to boost his support among cult members, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Tuesday.
The move by Fumihiro Joyu emulated similar trips made by the cult's founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, known as Shoko Asahara, in 1991 and 1992. The cult is currently split between members supporting Joyu and fundamentalist members who keep faith with Matsumoto.
According to sources, the pilgrimage visited nine locations on Aug. 13-15 in prefectures including Nagano, Gifu, Nara and Kyoto that Joyu dubbed as "sacred grounds," where the followers meditated and chanted mantras at the sites.
At the same time, about 200 members of the anti-Joyu group attended seminars at cult facilities in Saitama Prefecture and elsewhere, marking the third time this year, including during the Golden Week holidays, that the rival groups have held seminars at competing times.
Tokyo, Japan - A Tokyo court on Friday upheld the death sentence for a top member of the doomsday cult charged with a nerve gas attack on Tokyo subway trains in 1995 that killed 12, sickened thousands and shattered Japan's myth of public safety.
The Tokyo High Court rejected an appeal by Masami Tsuchiya, a top chemist in the cult, against a lower court ruling in January 2004 sentencing him to hang.
The courts said Tsuchiya had played a key role in producing sarin nerve gas and other toxic chemicals used in crimes committed by the Aum Shinri Kyo doomsday cult, including the 1995 Tokyo subway attack.
"The Aum-related crimes, such as the sarin gas attack, could not have taken place without him, and he was at the center of the crimes," Kyodo news agency quoted presiding judge Yu Shiraki as saying in upholding the lower court ruling.
"The crimes were vicious and cruel, and there is no choice but to give him the death penalty in light of the feelings of the victims and the impact that they had on society."
It was not immediately clear whether the 41-year-old Tsuchiya would appeal Friday's ruling.
The other cult members condemned to death include its guru, Shoko Asahara. None have been hanged yet.
Asahara, the founder and former leader of Aum, was found guilty of responsibility for the gas attack and sentenced to death by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004.
Asahara's defense counsel filed a special appeal in June at the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the Tokyo High Court's rejection of his appeal against the death sentence.
Asahara set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings and attracting at its peak at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, including graduates of some of the nation's elite universities.
The pudgy, nearly blind guru had predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland.
Aum Shinri Kyo, which admitted involvement in the gassing, later changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders insist that the cult is now benign, but Japanese authorities still keep its membership of more than 1,000 under surveillance.
The gas attack and images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public and shattered the country's self-image as a haven of public safety.
Tokyo, Japan - When she was finally allowed to visit her father, she found him in a wheelchair, wearing a diaper. A prison guard took notes throughout the 30-minute encounter, which took place in a small, barren room, through a plate of thick, transparent plastic. It was, for her, a dream come true. But as a nightmare.
Sitting on the other side of the glass was Shoko Asahara. With his arrest and trial, the teenager had gone from obscurity to being the daughter of Japan's most hated man.
Asahara was sentenced to hang for trying to bring down Japan's government in an elaborate scheme to hasten Armageddon with a series of violent crimes culminating in a nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subways that killed 12 people and sickened 5,000 more on March 20, 1995.
His arrest was seen live on television as a phalanx of riot police marched on his Aum Shinrikyo cult's fortress at the base of Mount Fuji. The spectacle remains etched in Japanese memories.
The second and third of his four daughters spoke to The Associated Press about their prison visits but, fearing reprisals, insisted on anonymity. During the interview, the younger daughter wore a wig to disguise herself.
Japan's tough prisoner visitation rules were tightened even further to apply to Asahara's six children and other relatives. The daughters waited nine years for the chance to visit him. Virtually the only other prison visitors have been his lawyers, doctors and psychologists.
Authorities had their reasons: They feared Asahara might try to pass messages to followers, and the third daughter had been rumored as his cult successor. In the interview, she scoffed at that possibility, but didn't flat-out deny it.
But as the case against him progressed, Asahara's defense team was facing an increasingly serious problem - they couldn't communicate with their client.
Shortly after his eight-year trial began, Asahara started to behave incoherently. He mumbled, chuckled, released outbursts of gibberish, then fell silent. Blind and virtually deaf, the man who portrayed himself as a messiah appeared to have lost his mind.
So, as they prepared an appeal after his conviction in 2004, his lawyers decided to push for visits with Asahara's daughters, hoping these would somehow bring him out of his shell. The court agreed.
"Seeing our father again was the only thing that kept us going," the second daughter said in the interview. She had been warned he was in bad shape, but what she saw came as a shock. "I wanted to tell him and ask him so many things," she said. "But he just sat there grinning. It was unbearable."
Though 51, he looked old and frail. He didn't respond to anything she said, just mumbled and chuckled. During a later visit, he masturbated in front of her. She went into a deep depression, and was briefly hospitalized.
Never in their dozens of visits have they had a coherent conversation, the daughters say.
But while Asahara failed to bring down Japan's government, many believe he is now succeeding in making a mockery of - or becoming a martyr at the hands of - its justice system.
In June, Asahara's lawyers petitioned Japan's Supreme Court in what could be their last chance to save him. A decision is expected at any time. If the sentence stands, and Japan follows normal practice, the self-proclaimed guru will be hanged without prior announcement, and the daughters notified only after he is dead.
Odyssey in the courtroom
Asahara's post-conviction saga has been no less bizarre than his courtroom behavior.
His legal team missed the deadline to file an appeal because, they claim, they couldn't communicate with him in any meaningful way.
Evaluations conducted before the appeal deadline by court-appointed psychiatrist Akira Nishiyama found Asahara to be disturbed but competent, and suggested he might be faking insanity to avoid punishment.
But Takeshi Matsui, who heads the defense team, said Asahara suffers from "prison psychosis," which is manifested in delusions, hallucinations, incoherent speech and disorganized behavior. Matsui's motion demands Asahara be treated and that they be allowed to appeal once he is again stable enough to assist his defense.
"I have heard these kind of problems can be treated in a matter of months," Matsui said.
Hisataka Kogi, a psychiatrist hired by Matsui's team, said his examination showed of Asahara to be in need of treatment but added "he is treatable."
"The court is rushing to condemn him," Kogi said. "To do so, the authorities don't want to stamp him as insane because that makes it impossible to execute him. ... I think the court deliberately avoided a mental evaluation that would lead to that possibility."
The law, at least, is clear.
Prisoners cannot be executed if they have lost the ability to understand the punishment due to mental illness, and a stay must be granted until he or she recovers, according to Justice Ministry official Hiroyuki Tsuji.
The ministry has no record of any such case in the past, Tsuji said.
If Matsui's petition fails, Asahara will join 84 people on death row. He would likely be hanged at the Tokyo Detention Center where he is now incarcerated, but officials said that decision will not be made until after the ruling is announced.
Chizuo Matsumoto - he assumed the religious name Shoko Asahara when he created Aum - was convicted and in April 2004 sentenced to die.
In their verdict, the three judges held that "These crimes are the most heinous and grave that we have ever seen," and that "there is no other punishment for him than death."
Multimillion-dollar organization
By age 30, Asahara's life had etched an amazing trajectory.
After two run-ins with the law in his 20s that led to convictions for misdemeanor fraud and assault, he gave up a massage and yoga business to found a cult preaching an eclectic mishmash of Buddhist, Hindu and New Age teachings.
It was a huge success -- within a decade of its creation in 1984, it had swelled to 10,000 members in Japan and claimed another 30,000 in Russia. It was generating tens of millions of dollars (euros) in income from membership donations - thousands of followers gave up all their possessions to live on Aum communes - and from a booming computer software business.
But as it grew into Aum Shinrikyo, aka Aum Supreme Truth, it became increasingly focused on hastening the world's end.
Critics and "deserters" were treated harshly - nearly a dozen were murdered, authorities later discovered, some incinerated at the Aum commune.
The cult actively recruited members with scientific and medical backgrounds, and used their expertise to set up labs to manufacture various chemical and biological weapons - from anthrax to the deadly nerve gas sarin, developed by the Nazis in World War II - and stockpiled guns and hallucinogenic drugs.
Court documents say the cult was also seeking uranium to use in a "dirty bomb" nuclear device.
Asahara told his followers Armageddon was near and only his followers would survive. According to his former aides, Asahara grew afraid police were on to Aum after newspapers linked it to a 1994 nerve gas attack in the central Japan city of Matsumoto that killed seven people.
The police swooped two months after the subway attack, confiscated truckloads of weapons and drugs, rounded up dozens of cult leaders and pulled Asahara out of a concealed crawlspace.
He was charged with masterminding the gassing and involvement in 12 other crimes that killed 27 people. Eleven of his top lieutenants have been sentenced to hang, although none has yet been executed pending appeals. Three more remain at large.
But Asahara's legacy lives on.
The cult has renamed itself Aleph, and authorities say about 1,650 people in Japan and 300 in Russia continue to believe in Asahara's teachings. Aleph members reached at the cult's Tokyo headquarters refused to talk to the AP.
Life hasn't gone back to normal for Asahara's daughters.
Eleven years after the subway gassing, public anger remains so intense that Asahara's daughters still receive death threats. They rarely appear in public. Seen as a potential cult leader, the third daughter claims she is often tailed by plainclothes police. Court orders have been required to force towns to register them as residents.
His second and third daughters, now in their 20s, say they have recently broken their silence to plead for mercy for their father, saying they, like the rest of Japan, badly want to hear him explain himself. They are suing the Tokyo High Court and the state-appointed psychologist, claiming their father was denied a fair trial.
"If he committed these crimes, he must be punished," the younger one said. "But he has no more understanding of what is happening around him than a cat or a dog. To execute him now isn't justice."
Life hasn't gone on for Aum's victims, either.
After helping pull victims from a train at Kasumigaseki station, in the heart of Tokyo's government district, subway worker Kazumasa Takahashi, 50, got out a broom and a dustpan and started cleaning up a puddle of clear liquid - later identified as sarin - that had spilled from a plastic bag by the door of one of the cars.
Minutes later, he was dead. Far more might easily have died had the gas fumes spread more rapidly
Takahashi's widow, Shizue, sat through more than half of the 260 sessions of Asahara's murder trial at the Tokyo District Court. She too was desperate to hear Asahara explain his actions, accept responsibility and apologize.
She has given up on that.
"In the beginning, I hoped that he would say something, but obviously, he was not facing the trial seriously, not reflecting on the crimes or thinking about the victims," she said. "This man is hopeless, and at this point I don't have to hear anything from him."
Toyko, Japan - The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected a 9 million yen damages lawsuit filed by the family of convicted AUM Shinrikyo cult founder Shoko Asahara over restrictions on their visits to him, saying the restrictions were not illegal.
Family members filed the suit, saying that a Tokyo High Court judge and Tokyo detention center guards were unfairly limiting their visits to Asahara, who was sentenced to death for various crimes including the cult's deadly gassing of Tokyo subways in 1995.
In rejecting the suit, Presiding Judge Atsuo Nagano said officials were acting within their rights.
"It cannot be said that the judge's decision to prohibit visits clearly ran counter to the guidelines of the powers granted to him, and (the decision) was not illegal," Nagano said.
According to the ruling, a total ban on visits has been placed on Asahara, and his family meets him only at times when the court partially lifts the ban.
During their suit, the family of Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, argued that the detention center was not giving Asahara sufficient medical treatment even though he had a serious psychiatric disorder. The court dismissed the argument, saying that based on the diagnosis of a psychiatrist, the detention center had decided that forced treatment was not necessary. The court added that this decision could not be called unreasonable.
AUM Shinrikyo has changed its name to Aleph.
Toyko, Japan - Police on Thursday raided the home of a former AUM Shinrikyo cult member in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture, and related places on suspicion that the man and another former cult member had fraudulently opened a bank account to evade taxes.
The 35-year-old man and his conspirator - a 35-year-old woman - allegedly opened the savings account with the purpose of having the man's company dodge taxes and used the account to support the wife and daughter of AUM founder Shoko Asahara, whose death sentence is believed likely to be finalized in the near future.
Among the places searched in Tokyo, Saitama and Ibaraki prefectures, Asahara's daughter was living in the man's house, and his wife in a house in Ryugasaki, Ibaraki, according to public security officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
The police believe that the suspects are in charge of taking care of Asahara's family members and have used money remitted to the account in question to pay their rent and other living costs.
The account was opened in 2002 in the name of the woman at a bank in Tokyo so that the man's computer software company could transfer money as salaries for the woman, who was not actually working for the firm, thus concealing its taxable income, the police said.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was sentenced to death at the Tokyo District Court in February 2004 for his role in 13 criminal cases including two deadly sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 and in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994.
The sentence will stand if the Supreme Court does not overturn the Tokyo High Court's rejection of his appeal against the death sentence, which is unlikely unless any violation of the Constitution or a precedent can be found in the high court decision.
AUM Shinrikyo has renamed itself Aleph.
