Japan's top court upholds death penalty for subway gas attacker

Tokyo, Japan - Japan's top court on Friday upheld a death sentence for one of five members of a doomsday cult who released deadly nerve gas on Tokyo's underground rail network in 1995.

Masato Yokoyama, 43, became the third member of the Aum Supreme Truth sect to lose his last appeal.

The Supreme Court rejected his counsel's demand that the sentence be reduced because no one died on the particular train where Yokoyama released Nazi-invented sarin gas.

Twelve people were killed and thousands more were injured in the attacks.

The cult released the gas on rush-hour trains under orders of their apocalyptic-minded guru Shoko Asahara, who apparently believed he would preempt a raid by authorities on the sect's compound, according to court rulings.

Death sentences have also been finalised for Asahara and Kazuaki Okazaki, who was convicted of killing an anti-cult lawyer, his wife and baby son in 1989.