OSAKA -- The parents of a man killed in a nerve gas attack for which Aum Shinrikyo members stand accused applied Monday with the Osaka District Court for workers' accident compensation.
According to the request, which demands that the head of the Abeno Labor Standards Inspection Office award compensation, Tadahito Hamaguchi, 28, was sprayed with nerve gas as he was going to work in Osaka on the morning of Dec. 12, 1994.
Hamaguchi died in a hospital 10 days later, but a request for workers' accident compensation filed in November 1995 was rejected about a year later.
Hamaguchi's parents pointed to the Labor Ministry's acknowledgment that victims of the 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway system are eligible for such compensation if they were on their way to work or on a business trip. "Putting aside the question of whether the risk of being attacked by VX gas on the way to work is usual, this case should merit compensation (because it happened) on the way to work," Hamaguchi's parents said in a statement.
The Osaka court has ordered eight cultists, including leader Shoko Asahara, to pay 120 million yen in damages in the nerve gas case. Seven Aum members have been indicted for murder, and one has already been found guilty.