Relatives of victims of gas attacks carried out by Japan's Aum Supreme Truth cult have vented their anger at the trial of cult guru Shoko Asahara and demanded the death sentence for him.
The greying, bearded and nearly blind Asahara, 48, appeared for his latest hearing at the Tokyo District Court in a grey sweater and black pants.
He showed no emotion as relatives or survivors of attacks testified about their ordeals for the first time since his trial opened seven years ago.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, kept his arms crossed and occasionally turned his face to the public gallery with his eyes shut.
"Considering he was the leader ... I think he deserves capital punishment," said a 43-year-old man, whose sister has been bed-ridden since she fell victim to the cult's Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995.
The gassing during the morning rush hour killed 12 people and injured thousands of others.
The witness, who gave his name in sworn testimony but asked the media not to identify him for fear of reprisals by the cult, said his 39-year-old sister's heart had stopped beating when emergency services reached her.
"She clung to life though her heart had stopped beating when she was rescued.
"Her body is still stiff and bed-ridden. Rehabilitation for her means to be able to sit in a wheelchair."
The victim's brother said it was "irrational" that Asahara was provided with food and clothing while victims' families suffer mentally and financially.
In a written statement read out by a prosecutor, one woman testified: "My father had been bed-ridden for one year and three months and died without opening his eyes or saying a word" after he inhaled the Nazi-invented Sarin gas in the subway on his way to work.
"His throat was cut open with a scalpel to insert a tube, but he did not feel it since the Sarin gas had paralysed his nerves."
Asahara "should disappear from this world in the way my father did", she said.
Another woman whose sister was killed in the Tokyo gas attack said in her statement: "My heart aches when I think about my sister who died an agonising death without understanding what happend to her ... I can think of nothing but capital penalty for him."
Taro Takimoto, a 46-year-old anti-cult lawyer who survived a cult attack with VX nerve gas, also said he wanted to see Asahara sentenced to death.
"The argument for abolishing the death penalty misses the point that human beings are capable of great evil as well as greatness," he said.
Takimoto said he would like to be a witness at Asahara's execution but noted he did not want his Aum disciples to be sentenced to hang.
Asahara has denied masterminding the Tokyo subway attack blaming his disciples, despite testimony from most followers that the offences were commited under his direction.
The cult's guru has made virtually no statement at his trial since January 1998 apart from murmuring incoherently, while he has often appeared to doze during proceedings.
Asahara has refused even to answer his own lawyers' questions.
If he remains silent on a session on April 10, prosecutors are expected to make their closing argument on April 24 against Asahara who is charged with murder and various other crimes in connection to 13 cases.
Nine of his disciples have so far been sentenced to death for their part in the Tokyo gas attack, another gassing in 1994 that killed seven people in the central Japan city of Matsumoto and other murders, including strangling of the entire family of an anti-cult lawyer.