Japan sentences poison gas attackers to death

Japan sentences poison gas attackers to death
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

TOKYO, July 17: Japan sentenced two Aum Supreme Truth disciples to death by hanging on Monday for spreading the deadly Nazi-invented Sarin nerve gas in Tokyo's subway in 1995. The two men dropped plastic bags filled with the liquid on subway trains and then punctured them, releasing the gas into the air during the morning rush hour on March 20, 1995.

A third doomsday cult member, 41-year-old Shigeo Sugimoto, who drove a car in the gassing operation, escaped the gallows and was sentenced to life in jail. The gas attack killed 12 people and injured thousands of others, many of whom are still suffering after-effects such as dizziness, eyesight problems and trauma.

The convicted killers were 32-year-old Toru Toyoda and 36-year-old Kenichi Hirose. They were the last of the five sect members who released the Sarin gas to be sentenced. Toyoda boarded a train in southern Tokyo's Nakameguro subway station and released the gas. Still on the loose, he sent a parcel bomb in May 1995 to then Tokyo governor Yukio Aoshima. A secretary opened it and lost all the fingers on his Left hand in the explosion. Hirose boarded a train at the western hub station of Ikebukuro, where he also released the deadly gas. Both murderers, along with the cult's leader Shoko Asahara, had also laid plans to manufacture 1,000 automatic rifles modeled on the Russian-made AK-47 between 1994 and 1995. They succeeded in producing one at an Aum Supreme Truth sect facility.