EYE FOR AN EYE

Japan Executes Six Remaining Members of Doomsday Cult

The country has hanged 13 members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in less than a month, an unprecedented number.

Japanese authorities have executed the last six members of a doomsday cult that orchestrated a fatal sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa announced the latest executions on Thursday, about three weeks after cult leader Shoko Asahara and six other members of Aum Shinrikyo were hanged. She called the crimes committed by the group heinous and noted that the country has never before carried out so many executions in a single month. The cult, which has been designated a terrorist organization in the U.S. and several other countries, gained notoriety for killing 13 people and sickening 6,000 in the 1995 subway attack. The group was ultimately believed to be responsible for at least 27 deaths in a spate of violent attacks in the 1990s.