JAPAN. CULT LEADER TO HANG FOR TOKYO SUBWAY ATTACK

Shoko Asahara, a former cult leader who masterminded a poison gas attack on Tokyo subway trains in 1995, had his appeal against the death penalty rejected by Japan's Supreme Court. Lawyers for Asahara, 51, had argued that the former leader of Aum Shinri Kyo, or Supreme Truth Sect, was mentally incompetent and called for the case be suspended. Asahara was found responsible for gassings on Tokyo rush-hour trains that killed 12 and sickened thousands, and was sentenced to death by a Tokyo court in February 2004 for murder and attempted murder. The attack injured about 5,500 people, some permanently, when members of the cult released sarin, a lethal nerve gas first developed but not used by the Nazis in World War Two. The nearly blind Asahara was also found guilty of other charges including a series of crimes that killed 15 people.