The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by condemned killer Seiichi Endo, lowering the curtain on the trials over the cult's heinous crimes, which began in the 1980s and culminated in the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.
All but one of the 189 Aum members brought to trial were convicted and 13 were sentenced to hang, including the babbling, half-blind founder and guru Shoko Asahara, 56, deemed the mastermind behind the mayhem. The rulings against Asahara were based on the testimony of the disciples tried before him, including doctors, chemists and other scientists and graduates of elite institutions who shed their pursuit of material gain for the spiritual.
Following are questions and answers regarding the doomsday cult and its terror campaign that shook the world: