JAPAN: The key testimony of two senior members of the doomsday cult is expected to seal Shoko Ashara's fate, writes David McNeill in Tokyo.
Judgment day comes today for Shoko Asahara, leader of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo whose followers gassed the Tokyo underground with the nerve agent sarin in 1995.
The incident killed 12 people, sickened thousands and introduced a terrifying new crime into the annals of urban terrorism, the subway gas attack.
If found guilty Asahara, who is accused of masterminding what has been called Japan's own 9/11 and ordering the killing of 27 other people, faces the death penalty.
More than 100 of the cult's followers have already been convicted of crimes including murder, kidnapping and experimentation on human subjects, and 10 have been sentenced to death.
During his marathon seven-year trial, Asahara's lawyers have tried to prove that the blind guru was too frail to control his disciples, who they say were acting on their own initiative when they waged a bizarre campaign to hasten Armageddon.
The prosecution has struggled to directly link Asahara to crimes such as the 1989 murder of a lawyer, Tsutsumi Sakamoto, who tried to expose the cult, but has argued that he bears ultimate responsibility for failing to rein in his followers.
However, the key testimony of two senior cultists, Aum's doctor, Ikuo Hayashi, and a senior aide, Yoshihiro Inoue, is expected to seal the guru's fate.
The Aum campaign is considered a watershed of Japan's postwar criminal history. After the subway attack the authorities came under intense criticism for failing to stop the cult, despite its links to a series of bizarre incidents including the 1994 gassing of an entire neighbourhood that killed seven and injured 600.
By the time police finally arrested Asahara in May 1995 after his followers attempted to set bags of sodium cyanide alight in the world's busiest train station, the cult he founded boasted nearly 40,000 followers in six countries and had amassed a small fortune from business deals and contributions.
Persuaded to drop out of life and prepare for the third World War, the disciples built up an impressive arsenal of weaponry that included chemical weapons and homemade machineguns.
At one stage the Japanese authorities feared Aum might use its helicopters to drop poison gas over Tokyo, and the cult was investigated by the CIA for trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Based on an apparently benign mix of Buddhism, Christianity and yoga, Aum quickly turned combustible when confronted by the increasingly hostile attentions of the media. Defectors and recalcitrant devotees were tortured and burned in microwave ovens, opponents outside the organisation were harassed and journalists were targeted for assassination.
Eventually, with the authorities closing in at the start of 1995, prosecutors say, Asahara ordered his disciples to attack the subway system around Tokyo's Kasumigaseki, the centre of government in Japan.
Today's verdict will offer closure to the victims' families but few clues to Asahara's journey from quack to alleged mass murderer. The guru himself has grunted and mumbled through 256 court sessions without once offering an apology, let alone an explanation. The organisation he founded only officially admitted to its role in the subway attack and other crimes in December 1999, and many doubts remain about whether it has officially severed its connections to Asahara.
If Asahara gets the death penalty, it is likely to be years before the sentence is carried out, thanks to Japan's creaky appeals system.