A Japanese court upheld the conviction and death sentence of former leading doomsday cult member Kiyohide Hayakawa on Friday for his role in four murders and for building a factory that made the nerve gas used in a 1995 attack on the Tokyo subways. Hayakawa, known as the Aum Shinrikyo cult's "construction minister," was convicted in Tokyo District Court in 2000 of killing anti-cult lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and infant son in 1989. He was also convicted of the 1989 strangling of a young cult member who wanted to leave the group. Hayakawa belonged to the upper elite in the cult, which preached Armageddon was approaching, and some have speculated that he was second in power only to former guru Shoko Asahara. Like several other indicted members of the cult, Hayakawa's defense rested on the claim that he was brainwashed by Asahara.
| "Yup. Clean as a whistle. Nothin' there anymore. Saaaay! Is that Shinola?" |
Asahara was convicted and sentenced to death in March for the 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway, which killed 12 people and sickened thousands, and a series of other attacks and murders. Asahara is appealing. |