Tokyo Sarin attack: Japan executes last Aum Shinrikyo members on death row

Shoko Asahara Image copyright Reuters
Image caption Cult leader Shoko Asahara was executed earlier this month

Japan has executed the remaining members of a cult behind the deadly 1995 Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway.

The six men were the last members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult on death row, and were executed on Thursday, the Justice Ministry said.

The Sarin attack, Japan's worst terror incident, killed 13 people and injured thousands more.

The cult was also accused of several other murders and an earlier Sarin gas attack in 1994 which killed eight and left 600 injured.

The execution of the 12 cult members and their leader had been postponed until all those convicted had completed their final appeals, which happened in January.

What was the Tokyo attack?

On 20 March 1995, cult members released the Sarin on the subway in the Japanese capital.

Witnesses described noticing packages leaking some liquid and feeling stinging fumes hitting their eyes soon afterwards.

Image copyright AFP
Image caption Victims were treated by emergency medical teams

The toxin struck victims down in a matter of seconds, leaving them choking and vomiting, some blinded and paralysed. Thirteen people died.

Aum Shinrikyo, often shortened to Aum, believed that the end of the world was coming and that those outside the cult would go to hell - unless they were killed by cult members.

In the months after, members of the cult made several failed attempts to release hydrogen cyanide in various stations.

What is Aum Shinrikyo?

The cult, whose name means "supreme truth", began in the 1980s as a spiritual group mixing Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, later working in elements of apocalyptic Christian prophesies.

Cult leader Shoko Asahara declared himself to be both Christ and the first "enlightened one" since Buddha.

Image copyright AFP
Image caption The cult attacked with deadly nerve gas

Aum Shinrikyo gained official status as a religious organisation in Japan in 1989 and picked up a sizeable global following.

The group gradually became a paranoid doomsday cult, convinced the world was about to end in a global war and that only they would survive.

The cult went underground after the 1995 attack, but did not disappear, renaming itself Aleph or Hikari no Wa.

Aum Shinrikyo is designated a terrorist organisation in the US and many other countries, but Aleph and Hikari no Wa are both legal in Japan, although designated as "dangerous religions" subject to surveillance.