The head of Japan's Aum cult is sentenced to death for the 1995 Tokyo subway attack. But are others waiting in the wings?"
At the height of Shoko Asahara's power as leader of the apocalyptic Aum Shinrikyo cult, followers paid exorbitant sums for the honor of drinking the guru's blood. Since 1995, when Aum carried out a poison-gas attack that killed 12 people in the Tokyo subway, the rest of Japan has been baying for his blood as well. Last Friday, after a nearly eight-year trial, a Tokyo judge finally sentenced Japan's most reviled man to hang for masterminding the subway attack and 15 other killings by the cult. With 11 of Asahara's former followers already sentenced to death, the verdict came as no surprise. Still, after the hearing, Asahara's lawyers announced they would appeal.
Aum—which has been renamed Aleph and has distanced itself from its former guru—issued a press release apologizing to the victims and their families. Despite its founder's woes, the cult has been slow to die. In 2000 it even appeared to be resurgent under a charismatic new leader, Fumihiro Joyu. Recently, however, with death sentences raining down on its former leaders, its ranks in Japan have dwindled to 1,650 (it also has an estimated 300 members in Russia). "The cult has lost its vitality," says Masaki Kito, a lawyer who has represented Aum's victims. "It's unable to recruit talented young people, it's under surveillance, and it's running out of money."
Still, the danger posed by Japan's many religious cults has not vanished. "The conditions that created Aum— the straitjacketed education system and the lack of creative outlets in society—are the same as before," says Yoshio Arita, an expert on cults. "There's nothing to prevent other groups like Aum from appearing."