Ex-Aum fugitive agrees to pay slain notary's kin

A former Aum Shinrikyo fugitive accused of helping to abduct a Tokyo notary in 1995 has reached a deal with the victim’s family to pay ¥10 million and reveal all he knows about the incident, a lawyer for the family said Friday.

Makoto Hirata, 48, who turned himself in to Tokyo police in December 2011, is accused of involvement in the abduction and confinement of Kiyoshi Kariya, 68, in February 1995. Cultists tried for various heinous crimes laid to Aum claimed Kariya died after being injected with drugs by his captors and his body cremated.

Hirata’s Tokyo District Court trial, the first involving lay judges handling an Aum-related case, is set to start Jan. 16.

Included in the deal, drawn up in July, is ¥4 million the family has already received from a defense lawyer for a woman who harbored Hirata while he was on the run.

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