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JAPAN. HIGH COURT SAYS ASAHARA CAN BE PUT TO DEATH
June 5, 2006: the Tokyo High Court rejected a defense motion against the death sentence for Shoko Asahara, the former doomsday cult leader who masterminded a 1995 Tokyo subway gassing that killed 12 people.
The decision paved the way for the former Aum Shinrikyo cult guru to be executed.
The Tokyo High Court had rejected the defense's appeal against the death sentence in March, prompting Asahara's lawyers to file an objection. The latest High Court decision overruled the objection.
Asahara's lawyers had objected to the original ruling, saying it was based on a mistaken psychiatric assessment.
Asahara, born Chizuo Matsumoto, was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to hang for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo assault, in which cult members released deadly sarin gas on trains converging on the city's government district.
Asahara also was convicted of plotting a 1994 gas attack that killed seven in the central city of Matsumoto, the kidnapping and murder of an anti-cult lawyer and his family, and other slayings.
The nearly blind former leader mumbled incoherently during his eight-year trial, interrupting sessions with bizarre outbursts in English. He also has been observed talking to himself and wetting his pants, his lawyers said.
Asahara's lawyers said their client suffered from pathological mental stress caused by confinement and is unfit for trial.
But a court-appointed psychiatrist submitted a report to the Tokyo High Court saying Asahara may be feigning mental illness and "had not lost the ability to stand trial." (Sources: AP, 05/06/2006)
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