While the trial of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara has proceeded at a snail's pace, with prosecutors examining only nine out of the 17 counts that he faces to date, his disciples' trials have entered their final stages before the district court.
This year, prosecutors sought the death penalty for seven Aum followers and life prison terms for three others accused of taking part in the March 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system and in the November 1989 murder of anticult lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and their baby son.
"Aum trials will reach a turning point next summer when a number of rulings will be handed down on senior cult figures," said Ryuzo Saki, a nonfiction writer who has covered the court proceedings for Asahara and other key Aum members. For the 1995 sarin attack, prosecutors sought death sentences for cult members accused of actually releasing the gas on the trains and life terms for their getaway drivers.