Guru behind Tokyo tube poisoning awaits court verdict

The doomsday cult guru accused of ordering the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo tube network and a string of other killings was awaiting a verdict today in a court session that began with the judge rejecting his claims of innocence.

A conviction and death sentence were widely expected against Shoko Asahara, the nearly-blind, bearded cult leader who is charged with murdering a total of 27 people and ordering followers to produce chemical weapons including sarin nerve gas.

The announcement of a verdict and sentence were to come after several hours of proceedings, but Judge Shoji Ogawa, in the morning session, outlined seven of the 13 counts against Asahara, rejecting the defence’s arguments in each one.

“The defendant plotted to spread sarin nerve gas across Tokyo, destroy the capital and build his own kingdom, and he ordered the construction of a sarin production plant,” Ogawa said.

There are no jury trials in Japan, and a four-judge panel led by Ogawa will decide Asahara’s fate, though he has the right to appeal.

Eleven of his followers have already been sentenced to death, but none has been executed yet.

Security was tight at Tokyo District Court to guard against disruptions by Asahara followers, and media reported that a decoy was used on the way to the court today to thwart any attempt to free the ex-guru.

Some 4,600 people turned out for a shot at the 38 courtroom seats available to the public – spectators were chosen by lottery.

Asahara did not speak in the morning session, although he grinned as he was brought into the courtroom, and made comic faces during the proceedings.

The former guru’s lawyers have argued in court that Asahara – whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto – had lost control over his Aum Shinrikyo cult by the time of the March 20, 1995, Tokyo attack, which killed 12 people and sickened thousands.

Many of his followers, however, have testified that they committed crimes under his orders and guidance.

Families of victims have spent years waiting for justice, though they say the trial’s outcome will provide only limited solace.

Shizue Takahashi, the widow of a subway worker who died in the attack, has faulted the police for failing to crack down on the cult before the gassing, despite clear evidence that the group was a threat.

Today, however, she said she looked forward to a guilty verdict.

“I’m glad that they’ve established his guilt in the other incidents covered this morning,” she told reporters outside the court.

The tube gassing was Aum’s most horrific crime. Five cult members pierced bags of sarin – a nerve gas developed by the Nazis – on separate trains as they converged in central Tokyo’s national government district as a pre-emptive strike against police planning raids on the cult.

The attack sent the country into a panic as sickened, bleeding passengers stumbled from subway stations around Tokyo.

Survivors still suffer from headaches, breathing troubles and dizziness. The cult was ordered in separate court proceedings to pay 3.8 billion yen, (€30m), in damages to the victims.

Asahara is also accused of ordering followers to carry out a sarin gas attack the previous year in Matsumoto, central Japan, that killed seven people plotting the murder of an anti-Aum lawyer and his family and killing errant cult members.

Aum’s weapons programme was carried out by a coterie of highly-educated scientists from Japan’s best schools.

Asahara’s flock was bewitched by a mix of Hinduism, Buddhism and yoga that predicted an Armageddon that only cult members would survive.

The trial has taken nearly eight years, lengthened by Japan’s chronic shortage of lawyers and judges, the complexity of the case and a six-month delay caused by Asahara’s firing of his first lawyer.

Today’s session was the 257th of the trial.

Police say the cult’s remnants are showing signs of greater allegiance to Asahara. Agents this month raided the offices of the group, which still claims 1,650 members in Japan and 300 in Russia.