BBC/AP: Seven members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult which carried out a deadly chemical attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 have been executed, including cult leader Shoko Asahara.
The Sarin attack, Japan’s worst terror incident, killed 13 people and injured thousands more.
The executions took place at a Tokyo detention house on Friday morning.
Japan did not give prior notice of executions, but they were later confirmed by the justice ministry.
Shoko Asahara, 63, and his followers were also accused of several other murders and an earlier Sarin gas attack in 1994 which killed eight and left 600 injured.
The executions Friday of a doomsday cult leader and six of his followers closed a chapter on one of Japan’s most shocking crimes, which apart from having killed 13 people, it sickened more than 6,000.
The attack in 1995 woke up a relatively safe country to the risk of urban terrorism.
The ensuing raid on the cult’s compound near Mount Fuji riveted Japan, as 2,000 police officers approached with a canary in a bird cage. Shoko Asahara, the bearded, self-proclaimed guru who had recruited scientists and others to his cult, was found two months later, hiding in a compartment in a building ceiling.
