TOKYO - A survivor of the March 1995 sarin gas attack by the AUM Shinrikyo religious cult on the Tokyo subway system said Thursday during a trial in Tokyo that the cult's founder should face the death penalty for his crime.
The 67-year-old man, testifying as a witness in the trial of AUM founder Shoko Asahara at the Tokyo District Court, said all those responsible for the sarin gas attack should share their fate and ''they deserve capital punishment.''
It was the first time that a victim of the incident has testified publicly about his feelings at Asahara's trial. Twelve people were killed and more than 5,000 injured in the subway attack.
''I feel indignation that people who were on their way to work early to avoid the morning rush hour were indiscriminately killed or injured,'' the man testified.
At about 8 a.m. on March 20, 1995, the man was on a train on the Hibiya Line when he noticed a clear liquid was leaking from the edge of a folded newspaper on the floor, he said.
He leaned down to look more closely and unwittingly inhaled the sarin gas, which had been spread around the train by Toru Toyoda, a 33-year-old former senior member of the cult.
When asked by prosecutors how he feels now when he looks back on the incident, the man said, ''I was terrified to see people who were in convulsions and groaning on the platform.''
The man, who was ill for two months after the attack, said he still suffers from aftereffects of the sarin gas such as weakened eyesight and a sluggish sensation in his lower body.
Toyoda was sentenced last July to death by the same district court, along with another former AUM follower Kenichi Hirose.
Shigeo Sugimoto, another former cult member, was sentenced to life in prison for his role as the driver of the getaway vehicle in the attack.
All three appealed their convictions to the Tokyo High Court.
Two other assailants in the 1995 attack, Masato Yokoyama and Yasuo Hayashi, both former senior cult members, also received death sentences from the local court, while Ikuo Hayashi, a former doctor at an AUM-affiliated hospital, was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment on the grounds that he showed remorse for his actions, and willingly turned himself in to the police.
Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was indicted on 13 charges, including those related to the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system, a 1994 sarin gas attack on judges' official residences in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture and the 1989 triple murder case of Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer who opposed AUM, his wife Satoko, and their 1-year-old son Tatsuhiko.
AP-NY-04-05-01 0356EDT
Copyright 2001 The Kyodo News Service.