JAPAN: SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS DEATH PENALTY FOR 'EXORCIST' OVER DEATHS OF 6

the Supreme Court in Tokyo, Japan, upheld rulings by lower courts that sentenced a self claimed exorcist to death for the deaths of six followers, tossing out her not-guilty appeal. In the decision, the top court's Third Petty Bench said the criminal responsibility of the defendant, 61-year-old Sachiko Eto, was ''exceptionally grave'' because she formed a religious group by claiming to be god's messenger and condemned her followers to death by violent means using her absolute power over them. Dismissing her appeal, Justice Tokiyasu Fujita said, ''We can approve of a high court's decision that acknowledged the defendant's full competency in taking responsibility for her own actions.'' Eto conspired with others in beating followers with drumsticks in her house in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture, where she lived with them, between December 1994 and June 1995 as a way of forcing demons out of their bodies, the Sendai High Court said in the November 2005 ruling. Eto was charged with killing four of the followers, inflicting injuries on two others that later led to their deaths, and seriously injuring one person in the incidents. The Fukushima District Court sentenced Eto to death, saying she ''assaulted the victims by taking advantage of their blind faith in her teachings.'' The Sendai High Court later upheld the decision, dismissing her appeal.