A wide-range of reactions were heard Friday to news of the executions of Shoko Asahara and six former senior members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo — w
A wide-range of reactions were heard Friday to news of the executions of Shoko Asahara and six former senior members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo — which carried out the deadly 1995 sarin nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system — with some saying it was good the sentences were finally carried out and others recalling the devastation inflicted by the group.
“There are people who both support and oppose the executions, but it had to happen eventually, didn’t it?” Motokatsu Hosaka, 81, from Tochigi Prefecture, said at Tokyo Station.
“I am not a person who supports the death penalty but in this instance the crime was indiscriminate and unforgivable,” said a 71-year-old woman from Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.
In the attack on March 20,1995,13 people were killed and more than 6,000 were injured.
“After all these years I thought it would never happen but I think it’s good they finally carried out the executions,” said a 37-year-old woman from Tokyo’s Koto Ward, who asked not to be named.
Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004. The sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in 2006.
A Tokyo resident in his 60s who was on a Hibiya Line train on the morning of the sarin attack also welcomed the hanging of the cult founder. But the man, who was not on a train where the deadly nerve gas was released, said, “Rather than executing him, I rather wanted him to experience a living hell.”
Some people had vivid memories of the attack, which occurred during the busy morning rush hour in central Tokyo.
“The incident happened next to my company.
