Death sentence upheld for Japanese cultist

Tokyo, Japan - A Japanese court on Thursday upheld a death sentence against a prominent member of a doomsday cult who produced nerve gas for a deadly attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

Seiichi Endo, 46, was an elite university graduate in science who later joined the Aum Supreme Truth sect.

"The accused took the initiative in the production of sarin gas, fully acknowledging that it is lethal," Tokyo High Court judge Osamu Ikeda said, upholding a lower court verdict.

Endo was "health and welfare minister" in the doomsday cult's self-styled government and played a key role in its study of sarin, VX-gas, anthrax and other germs and poisons.

Endo was a close aide to Aum guru Shoko Asahara, a charismatic former acupuncturist who preached of a coming apocalypse.

Asahara is on death row and in September lost his last chance for an appeal. Endo, however, still has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Endo was convicted of conspiring with Asahara to spray the Nazi-invented sarin gas in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto in June 1994 and helping to produce the gas used for the attacks on Tokyo subways in March 1995.

The Matsumoto gassing killed seven people, while the subway attack left 12 people dead and thousands of others injured.

"The two sarin attacks were vicious and extremely cruel," the judge said, as quoted by Jiji Press. "The cases were tragic and left society with unmeasurable fear."

Endo, who studied viruses and genetic engineering as a postgraduate at the prestigious Kyoto University, testified he began to follow Asahara as he felt "the limitations of science."

He has voiced remorse over his involvement in crimes but denied he took part with the intention of killing people.

Rejecting his denial, the judge said: "The accused made his own decision to become involved."