Japan has executed the remaining members of a cult behind the deadly 1995 Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway.<\/p>\n
The six men were the last members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult on death row, and were executed on Thursday, the justice ministry said.<\/p>\n
Seven others responsible for the attack, including leader Shoko Asahara, were put to death earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Sarin attack, Japan’s worst terror incident, killed 13 people and injured thousands more.<\/p>\n The cult was accused of several other murders and an earlier Sarin gas attack in 1994 which killed eight and left 600 injured.<\/p>\n “The pain and anguish of the people who were killed and their families as well as of the survivors left with disabilities, was unimaginable,” said justice minister Yoko Kamikawa at a news conference.<\/p>\n Those put to death on Thursday included a key Aum Shinrikyo recruiter and cult members who released the nerve gas in train carriages, reported Japanese broadcaster NHK.<\/p>\n The execution of all 12 cult members involved in the attack as well as Asahara had been postponed until their final appeals were completed, which happened in January.<\/p>\n On 20 March 1995, cult members released Sarin on the subway in the Japanese capital.<\/p>\n Witnesses described noticing packages leaking some liquid and feeling stinging fumes hitting their eyes soon afterwards.<\/p>\n The toxin struck victims down in a matter of seconds, leaving them choking and vomiting, some blinded and paralysed. Thirteen people died.<\/p>\n Aum Shinrikyo, often shortened to Aum, believed that the end of the world was coming and that those outside the cult would go to hell – unless they were killed by cult members.<\/p>\n In the months after, members of the cult made several failed attempts to release hydrogen cyanide in various stations.<\/p>\n The cult, whose name means “supreme truth”, began in the 1980s as a spiritual group mixing Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, later working in elements of apocalyptic Christian prophesies.<\/p>\n Cult leader Shoko Asahara declared himself to be both Christ and the first “enlightened one” since Buddha.<\/p>\n Aum Shinrikyo gained official status as a religious organisation in Japan in 1989 and picked up a sizeable global following.<\/p>\n The group gradually became a paranoid doomsday cult, convinced the world was about to end in a global war and that only they would survive.<\/p>\n The cult went underground after the 1995 attack, but did not disappear, renaming itself Aleph or Hikari no Wa.<\/p>\n Aum Shinrikyo is designated a terrorist organisation in the US and many other countries, but Aleph and Hikari no Wa are both legal in Japan, although designated as “dangerous religions” subject to surveillance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source\u00a0\u00a0bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
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What was the Tokyo attack?<\/h2>\n
What is Aum Shinrikyo?<\/h2>\n