JAPAN. DEATH SENTENCE FOR EX-AUM CULTIST STANDS, 1ST IN AUM-RELATED CASES

the death sentence for Kazuaki Okazaki, a former senior member of the AUM Shinrikyo cult, was finalized after Japan’s Supreme Court rejected his plea to change the ruling.
Okazaki, 44, who was charged with murdering a lawyer, and the lawyer's wife and infant son, as well as an AUM follower in 1989, was the first AUM defendant whose death sentence had been fixed.
A total 13 defendants, including AUM founder Shoko Asahara, were sentenced to death by district or high courts in connection with a series of AUM-related crimes.
The Tokyo District Court sentenced Okazaki to death in October 1998. The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling in December 2001.
According to the court rulings, Okazaki murdered lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, 33, his wife Satoko, 29, and their 1-year-old son Tatsuhiko, in November 1989. Sakamoto had been helping people with complaints against the cult. He also killed former AUM member Shuji Taguchi, 21, in February 1989 when Taguchi attempted to leave the cult.
Okazaki had asked for leniency, saying he surrendered himself and was the first among the perpetrators of the Sakamoto family murders to confess to the crime.
The death sentence was finalized after the top court's No. 1 Petty Bench, which handed down the ruling on April 7, rejected a protest by Okazaki and his lawyers to have the ruling changed. His trial was the shortest among the 13 because he admitted to the charges from the start. Among the 13 death row inmates, seven others had appealed to the top court, while the remaining five were still making their appeals at high courts.