Asahara: 'still crazy after all these years'

[Taro Toporific]

Cult still a danger in Japan
news.com.au network Source: AFP 11apr03
A public security source in Tokyo said Joyu, 40, was trying to "tighten the reins on followers there" to prevent them leaving the cult even if the death penalty for Asahara was asked.
Apart from murmuring incoherently, Asahara has made virtually no statement at his trial --- which opened in April 1996 --- since January 1998 when he denied masterminding the gas attack and he has often appeared to doze during proceedings.

[Taro Toporific]

Crazy? Hmmm, let's see...He has been in virtual solitary for 10 years as his "trial" blasts forward for conclusion in 2025.



AUM cult founder Asahara suffers from prison-induced mental disorder
Kyodo. Monday December 13, 10:10 PM -- Prosecutors have recognized that AUM cult founder Shoko Asahara is suffering from a mental disorder that stems from being detained for so long, but has rejected calls to suspend a hearing of his appeal case on the grounds that he is incompetent to stand trial, his defense lawyers said Monday....more...

[Taro Toporific]

Crazy? Hmmm, let's see...He has been in virtual solitary for 10 years as his "trial" blasts forward for conclusion in 2025.

Asahara still unfit for trial: counsel
The Japan Times, July 30
Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara's defense counsel said it filed a second request Friday with the Tokyo High Court to suspend the cult guru's appeals trial until his mental state improves.
The counsel also asked the court to extend the Aug. 31 deadline for the submission of a document stating the reason for the appeal, noting they have been unable to gain a sense of coherent communication with their client.
The Tokyo District Court on Feb. 27, 200, sentenced Asahara, 50, to death, and the sentence will become final if the deadline is missed. The high court had previously extended the deadline from Jan. 11 to Aug. 31....more...

[Taro Toporific]

Japanese cult leader unfit for appeals trial: lawyers
Reuters, Nov 12, 2005, TOKYO:The ex-leader of Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinri Kyo, sentenced to hang for masterminding the fatal gas attack on Tokyo subway trains 10 years ago, is mentally ill and his appeals trial should be suspended, his lawyers said on Friday.
..."All he can do is grunt 'un'. It's more like a sound, not a voice," said lawyer Takeshi Matsui, adding that Asahara had sometimes suddenly broken into laughter or gone into a spasm in the 120 times the lawyers had visited him... Asahara was incontinent, wore diapers and used a wheelchair...


<--lawyer Takeshi Matsui. Who looks crazy?

[Taro Toporific]

[SIZE="5"][color="Purple"]'I'm innocent', says Japan's doomsday cult guru [/color][/SIZE]
- Yahoo! News, Sept 10
TOKYO (AFP) -Japan's doomsday cult guru, whose lawyers are appealing a death sentence over a 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway, has maintained his innocence and was therefore fit for trial...more...


"I'm innocent. I was trapped," Shoko Asahara, the founder of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, said in late March days after he was informed of a decision by the Tokyo High Court to dismiss his appeal against a death sentence, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.

..."All he can do is grunt 'un'. It's more like a sound, not a voice," said lawyer Takeshi Matsui, adding that Asahara had sometimes suddenly broken into laughter or gone into a spasm in the 120 times the lawyers had visited him... Asahara was incontinent, wore diapers and used a wheelchair...


<--lawyer Takeshi Matsui. Who looks crazy?

[Taro Toporific]

Japan court rejects cult leader's appeal
Yahoo! News, Sept 15
TOKYO -Japan's top court rejected appeals by cult founder Shoko Asahara, finalizing his death sentence for the 1995 nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subways, public broadcaster NHK reported Friday...A Supreme Court decision is final, sealing Asahara's death sentence.

[AssKissinger]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060916/ap_on_re_as/japan_doomsday_cult_7

TOKYO - Japanese authorities raided the offices Saturday of the doomsday cult that carried out the deadly 1995 nerve gas attacks on Tokyo's subways.

The goal was to pre-empt any violent reaction to Friday's Supreme Court decision upholding the death penalty against Shoko Asahara, the cult's founder and former leader.

Anyone associated with this bullshit should be killed.

[Charles]

On a related note..

For years I have been cursing Asahara as the inventor of modern urban bioterrorism, but I recently discovered I was wrong. I found out that Asahara and Aum Shinrikyo were merely copying the evil work of Bhagwan Rajneesh.



In 1984, Rajneesh's followers spread salmonella bacteria in restaurants in Oregon, in an attempt to kill or sicken city officials who were cracking down on the cult headquarters at Rajneeshpuram. 750 people were sickened and 45 hospitalized, although none died. This was clearly the first major bioterrorism attack of modern times.

The parallels between Rajneesh and Aum are scary. The Rajneesh attack is reminiscent of early Aum attacks that tried to kill judges who were deciding a case against Aum. Aum clearly followed Rajneesh's techniques, they tried to develop bacterial warfare agents, but switched to nerve gas when their experiments in bacterial infections failed. Rahneesh, like Asahara, was a crazy fuck who liked to screw up his brain, but unlike Asahara's favorite brainfuck electric shock gadgets, Rajneesh liked inhaling nitrous oxide, and his residence had pipes built into the walls to deliver a continuous supply to his rooms.
To this day, Rajneesh still has followers that are trying to salvage his "legacy," and they continue to distribute his perverted philosophies online. Now they've given him a phony Japanesey name, "Osho," to disassociate themselves from the evil reputation of the name Rajneesh.

[Marked Trail]

On the morning of 20 March 1995 in the Tokyo subway system...

[Coligny]

On the morning of 20 March 1995 in the Tokyo subway system...

Not that worse from the sunday morning church sermon on french TV...

(well aside from the gaz attack part...)

[sublight]

So when's the dude going to die already? I'm getting sick of having him as a neighbor.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japan cult member nabbed after 17 years on the run

A member of the doomsday cult behind a deadly Tokyo subway gas attack and other crimes turned himself in to police after 17 years on the run, an official said Sunday.

A Tokyo metropolitan police official said Makoto Hirata, a member of Aum Shinrikyo, conspired with several other members in kidnapping a notary official in 1995 and causing his death. The victim, Kiyoshi Kariya, then 68, was the brother of a follower trying to quit the group.

Hirata, 46, who had been on the run since the summer of 1995, turned himself in at a Tokyo police station and was detained early Sunday, the police official said on condition of anonymity.

The cult also released sarin nerve gas in Tokyo's subway system in 1995, killing 13 people and injuring more than 6,000 in Japan's deadliest act of domestic terrorism.

The cult had amassed an arsenal of chemical, biological and conventional weapons in anticipation of an apocalyptic showdown with the government.

Police say Hirata and other cult members kidnapped Kariya off a Tokyo street and confined him at the group's tightly guarded commune at the foot of Mount Fuji. They allegedly used anesthetics on Kariya to get him to talk about his sister, who escaped from the group after being pressed to donate her land. Kariya died from a drug overdose, police said.

According to court testimony, cult members burned Kariya's body in an incinerator inside the commune and disposed of the ashes in a nearby lake to destroy the evidence.

[sublight]

Since it's been over 15 years, hasn't the statue of limitations expired on these charges? Or have they been keeping additional charges on ice just in case something like this happened?

[dimwit]

Since it's been over 15 years, hasn't the statue of limitations expired on these charges? Or have they been keeping additional charges on ice just in case something like this happened?

They changed that a few years ago so there is no statute of limitation on murder.

[CrankyBastard]

Way most see it is, this guy turns himself in, another trial period of x years to hold off any hangings of those already convicted.

[Greji]

Way most see it is, this guy turns himself in, another trial period of x years to hold off any hangings of those already convicted.

As some one that was on the last Marunouchi train to be let through Kasumigaseki that morning and had one of our people (a contract fg) carted off by ambulance from the station for exposure to sarin (he was paralyzed for about 12 hours, but eventually recovered, I am waiting for them to proceed with the orderly and civilized hanging of any and all of these fucks. I personally think they should also drop Asahara through the trapdoor and let him dance the chicken, whether he is sane, or not.

[legion]

I personally think they should also drop Asahara through the trapdoor and let him dance the chicken, whether he is sane, or not.

I remember that day very well too, probably the only day it was safer to be traveling by motorcycle in central Tokyo.

However I think the death penalty is never justified, even with Asahara. He should remain in prison for his entire life, which in Japan means losing his toes to frostbite and his mind to boredom.

In a way the Japanese police are culpable too, they should have come down on AUM earlier, after that lawyer and his family were murdered, or at least after the sarin attack in Matsumoto. It is shocking they didn't join the dots when the lawyer and his family went missing. It was a major failure that they let them spin so far out of control.

One of the weaknesses of Japanese law enforcement is they pussyfoot around for ages, then come down like a ton of bricks. They routinely ignore traffic violations, but don't seem to join the dots that people shooting red lights and speeding encourages the kind of driving that kills innocent bystanders.

So while Asahara is guilty as hell, aside from the satisfaction of knowing he is no longer using up tax payers' money, hanging him doesn't really solve anything.

[Coligny]

However I think the death penalty is never justified, even with Asahara.

Neither is feeding him untill he dies of old age...

Putting Morie in jail was ridiculous.

Putting Asahara in jail is ridiculous.

Punition should fit the crime...

Morie should be forbidden to even own a car and forced to live in a condo working in a factory for slave wages.

Asahara should be send to a prison island like Cayenne... or Australia... without access to doctors, tools or communication and be left to fend for himself with other inmates of his grade.

That kind of sentences might make people think a bit more rather than standard jailtime...

[legion]

Morie should be forbidden to even own a car and forced to live in a condo working in a factory for slave wages.

That is Japanese prison

[maraboutslim]

Was he one of these guys?



(the guy on the left was caught and sentenced to life with Japanese spouse and is now in year 18 of his sentence, parole continually denied)

[Mike Oxlong]

Japan police turned away surrendering Aum fugitive

Japanese police turned away one of the nation's most wanted fugitives when he tried to surrender at Tokyo police headquarters on New Year's Eve after nearly 17 years on the run, reports said Tuesday. A police officer at the main entrance of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police thought it was a bad joke when Makoto Hirata, a former member of the Aum Supreme Truth doomsday cult, responsible for the 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway, showed up. According to major media, he approached the officer around 11:35 pm Saturday and said: "I am Makoto Hirata. I am turning myself in." But the officer dismissed him as a fake and urged Hirata to go to a local police station some 700 metres (yards) away.

[American Oyaji]

I wonder how bad he's gonna get reamed for that move.

[sublight]

They changed that a few years ago so there is no statute of limitation on murder.

Ah, I missed that. Thanks.

[legion]

Japan police turned away surrendering Aum fugitive

So they didn't catch him, he turned himself in, and they nearly managed to fail there too. Sometimes I think Japan is a semi-benign police state, but I guess I'll have to correct that to semi-competent police state.

[Greji]

I wonder how bad he's gonna get reamed for that move.

He's enjoying his new position as NPA's only permanently assigned tree counter for the Northern suburbs of Wakanai....

[dimwit]

I doubt we will ever get the real story about his 16 year on the lam, or where he came up with the piles of cash that he had. Who if anyone was sheltering him? Yazs are everyones first guess, but if the Ishibashi case has taugh us anything it is that having the brains to be resourceful makes it very possible to for someone to survive for a long time without being noticed.

[maraboutslim]

Well, Naoko Kikuchi is in custody, so that just leaves Katsuya Takahashi still at large.

(link died on my pic with the fugitives above, so here it is again...)

[wagyl]

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I am amazed that these guys really were still out there.

Really?

[matsuki]

Really?