Conviction New religious movements Doomsday / apocalyptic group Tokyo, Japan · 1995

Aum Shinrikyo: mass-murder convictions for sarin attacks directed by its guru

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2011-11-21

The final appeal among the 13 Aum defendants sentenced to death was dismissed; the Ministry of Justice’s published table records each defendant’s individual charges and appellate disposition.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

founder and guru, senior religious followers

Organization

Aum Shinrikyo

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The cited record identifies absolute guru authority, doctrinal justification for killing, and hierarchical command as the material spiritual doctrine, practice, authority, or pretext connected to the documented harm. The relevant authority role is founder and guru and senior religious followers.

Guru or spiritual-teacher authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2004-02-27 · criminal judgment

Tokyo District Court. Shoko Asahara was convicted and sentenced to death for the Matsumoto and Tokyo subway sarin attacks and other murders and attempted murders.
2006-09-15 · special appeal

Supreme Court of Japan. The court dismissed Asahara’s special appeal, making the death sentence final.

Documented coercion mechanisms

absolute guru authority
doctrinal justification for killing
hierarchical command

Cited record

Sources

government agency official case history Public Security Intelligence Agency of Japan, ‘25 Years After the Tokyo Subway Sarin Gas Attacks’ (2020).: The official record describes the 1994 Matsumoto attack, the 1995 Tokyo subway attack, their casualties, other violent incidents, and the continuing victim-relief record.
government agency official proceeding table Public Security Intelligence Agency of Japan, Review and Prospects of Internal and External Situations (2012), appendix 63.: The Ministry of Justice appendix lists the first-instance and appellate dispositions for 13 people sentenced to death in Aum-related cases, including Asahara’s 2004 judgment and the 2006 dismissal that made his sentence final.
official finding surveillance decision Public Security Examination Commission of Japan, ‘Summary of the decision to place Aum Shinrikyo under surveillance’ (Jan. 28, 2000).: The commission’s decision finds that the organization carried out the Matsumoto and Tokyo indiscriminate mass killings and records Asahara’s status within its doctrine as an incarnation demanding absolute devotion.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.moj.go.jp/psia/25years_after_the_tokyo_subway_sarin_gas_attacks Corpus classification: government-agency; evidentiary role: official-case-history. SHA-256 62c455932ec349cec1ac801b1f0cc0e8f24f4c7af8b692dc0c2443d0773f350d
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.moj.go.jp/content/000096470.pdf Corpus classification: government-agency; evidentiary role: official-proceeding-table. SHA-256 5851fe6d9168acfff3784771e929129d88d1a4deadc25d648889bb7c58ba9cc2
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.moj.go.jp/kouanshin/topics_topics27.html Corpus classification: official-finding; evidentiary role: surveillance-decision. SHA-256 a373a7b5353dc0a1716ed485d91b5741721099c18cc5651e28bfa77def182b63
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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