JAPAN. DOOMSDAY GURU UNFIT FOR DEATH PENALTY: LAWYERS

lawyers for Shoko Asahara, the founder of the doomsday cult which carried out the deadly 1995 gas attack on the Tokyo subway, said they will submit a new medical report to prove he is mentally unfit for execution. The lawyers said Asahara could only groan the sound "mmm" and could not speak to them or make eye contact. They said they would soon submit a doctor's report to the Tokyo High Court seeking to prove that the founder of the Aum cult was not fit to take responsibility for the crimes.
"This doctor's evaluation is likely to say Mr. Asahara has a grave mental disorder after being confined inside a narrow cell," said Akio Matsushita, chief defense counsel for the cult guru.
"We are not sure how the mental evaluation document will affect the court's decision, though," Matsushita acknowledged. "The court officially keeps saying that Mr. Asahara can take criminal responsibility."
Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004 for crimes including the subway attack in which twelve people died and thousands were injured when cult members spread Nazi-invented sarin nerve gas on rush-hour trains.
The lawyers had until August to appeal against Asahara's death sentence but failed to, saying they could not talk to him.
The court said it would not turn down the appeal until the court conducted its own psychiatric evaluation.
Prosecutors had filed their own doctor's diagnosis stating that Asahara "has an ability to communicate," according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Relatives of subway attack victims had also campaigned for Asahara to be hanged.
Matsushita said the defense was concerned about the judges hearing the case, accusing them of visiting Asahara unannounced when his attorneys were not present. "Although it is not clearly banned under Japanese law, it is an extremely rare for judges to meet with a defendant to explain the procedures for writing a letter of appeal," Matsushita said.