The Tokyo High Court on Friday acquitted former Aum Shinrikyo cult member Naoko Kikuchi of attempted murder in a 1995 bomb attack, an event in which she was accused of willful complicity.
Overturning an earlier lower court decision, the high court accepted Kikuchi's argument that she did not know of a plot to bomb the Tokyo Metropolitan Government headquarters, an incident that left a secretary to then-Tokyo Gov. Yukio Aoshima seriously injured.
Kikuchi, a member of the doomsday cult responsible for the notorious subway attack in Tokyo that year, which left 13 dead and thousands injured, was sentenced to five years in prison by the Tokyo District Court in June 2014. She had no direct role in the subway attack.