JAPAN. LAWYERS FOR DOOMSDAY CULT LEADER ON DEATH ROW FAIL TO SUBMIT APPEAL

lawyers for Shoko Asahara, the founder of a doomsday cult which carried out the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, failed to submit a letter appealing against his death penalty by the August 31.
The lawyers for Asahara met Tokyo High Court judge Masaru Suda, who could still accept the letter after the deadline if he decided the lawyers had good reason to delay its submission. Asahara's lawyers have previously told reporters that their 50-year-old client was in "another world" and was mentally unfit for trial. After a court refused to find Asahara mentally unfit for trial in 2004 and condemned him to death, defense counsel made a fresh attempt for a retrial and had to submit the guru's own reasons for it. His lawyers had said, however, they could not submit the letter because it was impossible to talk to Asahara. Takeshi Matsui, one of two privately appointed lawyers for Asahara, previously told reporters that he was no longer capable of communicating. It was "only natural to suspect some sickness if a man my age wears diapers and sits in a wheelchair on a blue sheet as a precaution against leakage," Matsui said earlier this month.