Tokyo court orders Aum Shinrikyo cult successor Aleph to pay ¥1 billion to victims of sarin attack
Aleph, the main successor to the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, was ordered to pay more than ¥1 billion in damages to the victims of the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack.
Defining the Heisei Era: Japan deals with death, disasters and a feeling of insecurity
Post-disaster Tohoku has been rife with supernatural sightings. Hauntings have been reported at homes and workplaces, in ruined towns and on beaches devastated by giant tsunami that crashed into hundreds of kilometers of Japan's northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, following a magnitude 9 earthquake ...
Japan marked the 24th anniversary Wednesday of a deadly sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway system carried out by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which killed 13 people and injured more than 6,000 others. In a memorial ceremony at Kasumigaseki Station, relatives of the victims ...
Letters containing suspected cyanide targeted 18 Japanese newspapers and drugmakers
Threatening letters with white powder suspected to be potassium cyanide were recently sent to a total of 18 companies, police sources said Tuesday. The letters include those delivered to the Tokyo headquarters of major dailies the Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun, and offices of ...
Threatening letters possibly containing toxic materials and demanding money sent to Japanese firms
Nine firms, including drugmakers and a newspaper publisher, have received threatening letters demanding money and containing a white powdery substance believed to be highly poisonous cyanide.
Examining the strange synergy of Heisei Era crimes in Japan
There's a tendency in some societies to associate a period of history with the crimes that occurred therein. This is why we use expressions such as "crime of the century." And Japan? Crime certainly figures prominently in a 264-page mook published by Bungeishunju titled "Heisei ...
The Japan Times newsroom selected the following domestic news stories as the most important of 2018.
Executed former Aum member Yoshihiro Inoue left over 5,000 pages of personal notes
Former senior Aum Shinrikyo member Yoshihiro Inoue wrote personal notes until just before his execution in July, a nonfiction writer has said. The notes, written on 400-character manuscript paper, amounted to over 5,000 pages, Ryusho Kadota, who has been acquainted with Inoue's parents for 23 ...
The family of a former Aum Shinrikyo cult member plans to file for a retrial after he was executed in July for his role in the deadly 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attack and other crimes committed by the group, a source with knowledge ...
Ex-Aum cultist Makoto Hirata has 'no special feelings' about Shoko Asahara's execution
Makoto Hirata, a former Aum Shinrikyo executive, says he has “no special feelings” about the execution last month of Shoko Asahara, the founder of the now-defunct doomsday cult.
Authorities have decided to permanently preserve trial records of criminal cases involving the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult as part of efforts to prevent a repeat of the serious crimes committed by its members, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said Friday. "Their crimes were unprecedented, and similar ...
Haruki Murakami says he cannot oppose execution of Aum cultists in '95 sarin attack
Best-selling author Haruki Murakami says he cannot publicly oppose the hanging of those who perpetrated Aum Shinrikyo's sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 despite his objections to the death penalty, but that Japan should not use the case as a pretext ...
