Japanese Aum cult member sentenced to death

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 30, 2003

Japanese Aum cult member sentenced to death

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The Tokyo District Court on Wednesday sentenced senior Aum Shinrikyo cultist Tomomasa Nakagawa to death for his role in the murders of 24 people in cases including the sect's sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway and in Nagano Prefecture.

Nakagawa, 41, ranks second to Aum founder Shoko Asahara in terms of the number of charges he faces. He has been indicted in 11 criminal cases.

According to the indictment, Nakagawa conspired with other Aum members and killed 24 people in five cases between 1989 and 1995.

He is also accused of being involved in an earlier gassing that killed seven in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, on June 27, 1994.

In addition, Nakagawa is accused of several attempted murders using cyanide fumes, VX gas, sarin gas and a letter bomb.

In January, the country's prosecutors demanded the death penalty for the former doctor, who joined the cult when he was a medical student at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine from which he was graduated in 1988.

The next year, while he was working as an intern in internal medicine at an Osaka hospital, he decided to quit and become a live-in member of the cult.

So far, nine Aum cult members have been sentenced to death by district courts, and are now appealing the case.

Japanese government placed Aum under surveillance until January but decided to extend it for another three years from February, saying the sect is still capable of committing indiscriminate mass murder.

Aum renamed itself Aleph in 2000.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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