A former Aum Shinrikyo cult member has been without a defense lawyer for some 20 months after a district court sentenced him to death for his part in the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 and other charges, judicial sources said Thursday.
The Tokyo High Court has been unable to schedule hearings for an appeal by Seiichi Endo, 44, against his death sentence, they said. The initial Tokyo District Court ruling said Endo, along with two other members of the doomsday cult now named Aleph, produced sarin gas used in the attack that killed a dozen people and injured more than 5,000.