Lawyer Yoshihiro Yasuda, chief attorney of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara and the country's leading crusader against the death penalty, was acquitted Wednesday of obstructing the compulsory seizure of rent income used by clients as collateral.
The Tokyo District Court acquitted Yasuda, 56, of conspiring with two clients to conceal 200 million yen by directing tenants of two buildings in Minato Ward, Tokyo, to pay their rent to two dummy companies between 1993 and 1996.
Prosecutors claimed Yasuda and the Singaporean president of the real estate company that owned the buildings did this to prevent moneylenders from seizing rental income. They had demanded a two-year prison term for the lawyer.