TOKYO, May 10 (Kyodo) - The court trying AUM Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara heard Thursday for the first time from relatives of those killed in the cult's 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, with the daughter of one of the victims saying she wants to see Asahara die by inhaling the same deadly nerve gas.
The woman, whose father Mitsuo Okada died after spending 14 months in a coma hooked up to a respirator, told the Tokyo District Court she hopes Asahara, 46, inhales sarin like her father and dies in the same way.
Okada, a 51-year-old company worker, was on his way to work on the Hibiya Line when his subway car was gassed.
His daughter told the court she could not believe the man lying in a coma in the hospital bed was her father. ''(My father) would play golf and go drinking energetically,'' she said in a tearful voice.
She said her mother was hospitalized for shock and still receives treatment.
Shizue Takahashi, 54, told the same hearing, ''My husband will not return and my heart will not heal, but my desire for revenge may be soothed if (Asahara) is executed.''
Her husband, Kazumasa Takahashi, deputy of the Tokyo subway's Kasumigaseki Station, died at age 50 after removing a plastic bag containing sarin from a train that had stopped at the station.
The attack left 12 people dead and more than 5,000 injured. Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, is on trial in 13 criminal cases, including the Tokyo subway gassing.
Asahara was originally indicted on 17 charges but public prosecutors in October last year canceled indictments on four drug cases in order to help speed up his trial.
AUM now calls itself Aleph.
AP-NY-05-10-01 0702EDT
Copyright 2001 The Kyodo News Service.