Patterns of Global Terrorism 1996 - Japan
- Author: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
- Document source:
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Date:
1 April 1997
The prosecution of Aum Shinrikyo leader Shoko Asahara and other cult leaders continued in 1996. Several additional Aum Shinrikyo members who had been implicated in the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway that killed 12 persons were arrested in Japan in 1996.
Five former cult officials have testified in court that Asahara instructed them to carry out the subway gas attack and other killings. In addition to the murder charge stemming from the gas attack, Asahara faces 16 other charges ranging from kidnapping and murder to illegal production of drugs and weapons.
Although no longer active in Japan as a terrorist group, Japanese Red Army members remain at large elsewhere around the world.
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