Defense lawyers for two former members of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult, sentenced to death for carrying out the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, urged the Tokyo High Court on Monday to overturn the sentences.
"They were incapable of being held liable due to brainwashing by the cult," one of the lawyers for Toru Toyoda, 35, and Kenichi Hirose, 39, said at Monday's opening hearing of their appeals trial.