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Japan's top court on Monday rejected
a death sentence appeal from a leading member of the AUM Shinrikyo
cult that was responsible for a series of poisonous gas attacks
which killed more than 20 people in the 1990s.
The Supreme Court verdict on Seiichi Endo, 51, marked the
end of the AUM trials, which lasted for 16 years. He is the
13th member of the cult to receive a death penalty verdict
and one of 180 cult members indicted for the crimes.
Endo was sentenced to death for producing sarin gas used
in the deadly 1995 attack on Tokyo subways and for his role
in a 1994 sarin attack by the cult in Matsumoto City in central
Japan.
He was originally given the death penalty by the Tokyo District
Court in October 2002, and the Tokyo High Court upheld the
lower court ruling in May 2007.
"Every one of his criminal acts was meant to protect
the cult, and its cruel and inhuman acts were unparalleled,"
said Presiding Justice Seishi Kanetsuki of the Supreme Court's
No. 1 Petty Bench in the ruling on Monday.
"The defendant's responsibility for being involved in
the killings of a total of 19 people by misusing his scientific
knowledge was very heavy, and the death sentence therefore
cannot be avoided," he said.
The court learned that Endo served as the health and welfare
minister in the cult that was modeled on a mini-government
and his responsibilities included the study of sarin, VX gas,
anthrax and other noxious gases, poisons and harmful chemicals.
But his defense lawyers claimed that he was not responsible
for planning or carrying out the attacks and had in fact been
brainwashed by cult leader Shoko Asahara, 56, whose real name
is Chizuo Matsumoto, who was sentenced to death for the murder
of 27 people and widely regarded as the mastermind behind
the doomsday cult's activities and killing sprees.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected claims of brainwashing
and upheld Endo's death sentence. Endo joins 13 other cult
members, including Asahara, currently on death row and has
10 days to file an appeal against the court's decision, as
per judicial protocol, although the appeal will likely have
zero bearing on his sentence.
The AUM Shinrikyo cult launched sarin gas attacks on the
Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, killing 13 people and
leaving thousands of others ill. The group was also held responsible
for an earlier sarin attack on June 27, 1994, in a parking
lot near housing for judges in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture,
killing eight people.
AUM Shinrikyo renamed itself Aleph in January 2000 and in
2007 a senior AUM disciple and his followers left Aleph to
launch a splinter group called Hikari no Wa (Circle of Rainbow
Light).
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