Japan Carries Out Final Aum Shinrikyo Executions
In a dramatic flash‑in‑the‑past of an otherwise orderly nation, Japan executed six more former cult members on Thursday morning. The Aum Shinrikyo group – infamous for the 1995 sarin gas attack that turned subway commuters into a living nightmare – had already lost its leader, Shoko Asahara, earlier this month.
Why the timing mattered
- The executions took place before the upcoming imperial abdication, ensuring the last of the condemned were dealt with while the current emperor was still reigning.
- In the words of local reporters, “it felt like we needed to finish the Heisei chapter before turning the page.”
- Without these final handcuffed events, the public could have imagined the cult’s story ending on a cliffhanger.
So what went wrong in 1995?
The Aum cult released liquid sarin at five subway stops, turning rush‑hour commuters into a bewildered pool of facial foaming and eye‑watering chaos. Picture a subway car becoming a science‑lab disaster: mouths foaming, noses dripping, and people stumbling out like they’d seen a ghost.
The aftermath was a city in turmoil, a horrifying spike of casualties, and a police scramble that led them to a Mount Fuji outpost, where they unearthed a bunker ready to produce enough sarin to wipe out millions.
What else did they do?
- sarin attack in Matsumoto (the year before Tokyo)
- the murder of an anti‑cult lawyer and his family
- other covert operations that finally landed 13 Aum members on death row for years
Public reaction: Victims, activists, and close‑knit families
Despite civil‑rights activists worries that the condemned could become martyrs, many victims were relieved. “When I heard the news, the world felt a little lighter,” one subway survivor said, bragging a bit of hope in a spreadsheet‑size of front‑page headline.
Alongside the grim finality, there was a peculiar battle over Asahara’s remains. The lawyer’s widow and his children, who have carved out “successor” cults for themselves, clashed over who gets the former guru’s ashes. In the end, his youngest daughter decided, “I’ll just scatter them at sea.” In this way the final prayer went “where the tide washed up nothing.”
Aftermath for the Aum movement
Officially, the cult was renamed Aleph in 2000, refusing to shout out a firm “no more.” The leadership fell apart years earlier, but the ghost of Asahara kept stirring the waters. Though Japan keeps the death penalty (and still likes it), it hoped this final pair of executions would put some closure on the tragic chapter.
