Tokyo, Japan - Lawyers for the former leader of a doomsday cult, seeking to save their client's life, urged a Tokyo court on Thursday to reverse its rejection of an appeal of a death sentence for the man accused of masterminding a 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
The Tokyo High Court said on Monday that defence lawyers for Shoko Asahara had failed to meet a deadline for filing the appeal, and it rejected their argument that he was mentally unfit to proceed with the process.
The court's decision could pave the way for Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, to be hanged for his role in masterminding the nerve gas attack that killed 12 and made thousands ill.
A spokesman for the Tokyo High Court said it was not clear when the court would make a decision or whether it would accept the lawyers' request.
Asahara, 51, was found guilty of responsibility for the gas attack and sentenced to death by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004.
The Tokyo High Court said last month that Asahara has been found mentally fit to continue his appeal.
But Asahara's lawyers had argued that the former guru of Aum Shinri Kyo, or Supreme Truth Sect, was incompetent, and they had requested that the case be suspended.
Asahara's lawyers said their client has been unable to speak or to communicate with them and should be moved to a hospital for treatment of his mental condition.
The gas attack on Tokyo rush-hour trains on March 20, 1995, injured about 5,500 people, some permanently, when members of the cult released sarin, first developed by Nazi Germany.
The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public and shattered the country's self-image as a haven of public safety.
Asahara was also found guilty of other charges including a series of crimes that killed 15 people.
Asahara set up the cult in 1987, mixing Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings and attracting, at its peak, at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, including graduates of some of the nation's elite universities.
The pudgy, nearly blind guru had predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland.
Aum Shinri Kyo, which admitted involvement in the gassing, later changed its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders insist that the cult is now benign, but Japanese authorities still keep its membership of about 1,600 under surveillance.
Asahara's lawyers were required to present their case for an appeal in August but had refused to take the step, saying Asahara was mentally incompetent, but they reversed their position last week, according to media reports.