Aum Shin Rikyo member sentenced to death

[October 23, 1998]

"The accused's criminal responsibility is too heavy to give leniency," stated a somber Judge Megumi Yamamuro, who presided over the Japanese court that sentenced a top member of the Aum Shin Rikyo cult to receive capital punishment. It was a first in Japanese judicial system history. The Aum cult was first brought to public attention for gassing the Tokyo subway system in 1995, killing a dozen people and injuring thousands more.

The Tokyo District Court convicted former Aum doomsday cult member Kazuaki Okazaki, 38, for the murder of four people in two separate attacks. Okazaki, who left the cult in 1990 with two million dollars in sect funds, first denied his involvement in the murders, later confessing full details of his role in the killings. He also acknowledged that he did not discuss cult activities to investigating authorities until one month after the Tokyo subway gassing.

Police reports reveal Okazaki and four other cultists (being tried separately) strangled Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife, Satoko and their baby son, Tatsuhiko on November 4, 1989, at their home in Yokohama, at the request of Aum leader Shoko Asahara. Sakamoto was preparing a lawsuit accusing the Aum cult of luring youngsters into the group. Okazaki's fourth victim, Shuji Taguchi, a cult member who tried to leave the group in February of 1989, was also murdered by strangulation.

Prior to the Okazaki verdict, the severest penalty received by a convicted Aum cult member was received by Ikuo Hayashi, 51, a former heart surgeon, sentenced to life in prison for his role in the March 1995 Tokyo subway gassing. A thorough investigation ensued to find and convict those responsible for the subway tragedy, which also led authorities to the discovery of the remains of the Sakamoto family, buried by the cultists in a remote mountain range in central Japan.

The recent rulings against Kazuaki Okazaki by Judge Megumi Yamamuro also clearly acknowledge Asahara's role as mastermind behind both the 1989 murders of the Sakamoto family and the 1995 subway gas attacks.

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