A senior Aum Shinrikyo member was sentenced to death Thursday for releasing deadly nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995 and for illegally manufacturing a rifle.
The Tokyo District Court found Masato Yokoyama, 35, a former deputy chief of the cult's so-called science and technology agency, guilty of releasing the gas on a Tokyo subway train on March 20, 1995, in an attempt to create chaos within the central government.
The court also accused him of joining in the cult's plan to manufacture 1,000 rifles. Although he successfully managed to produce only one firearm, it said Aum would have made more were it not for a police raid.