Image copyright AFP Image caption Shoko Asahara headed the Aum Shinrikyo cult 
 
 Seven members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult which carried out a deadly chemical attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 have been executed, including cult leader Shoko Asahara. 
 
 The Sarin attack, Japan's worst terror incident, killed 13 people and injured thousands more. 
 
 The executions took place at a Tokyo detention house on Friday morning. 
 
 Japan does not give prior notice of executions, but they were later confirmed by the justice ministry. 
 
 Shoko Asahara, 63, and his followers were also accused of several other murders and an earlier Sarin gas attack in 1994 which killed eight and left 600 injured. 
 
 Their execution, by hanging, had been postponed until all those convicted had completed their final appeals. That happened in January. 
 
 Another six members of the cult are still on death row. 
 
 Injured victims and the families of those killed have welcomed the executions. 
 
 "I reacted calmly... But I did feel the world had become slightly brighter," said Atsushi Sakahara, a film director who was caught in the attack. 
 
 "It will be impossible to ever forget the incident, but the execution brings a kind of closure." 
 
 What was the Tokyo attack? 
 
 On 20 March 1995, cult members released the Sarin on the subway in the Japanese capital. They left punctured bags filled with liquid nerve agent on train lines going through Tokyo's political district. 
 
 Witnesses described noticing the leaking packages and soon afterwards feeling stinging fumes hitting their eyes. 
 
 The toxin struck victims down in a matter of seconds, leaving them choking and vomiting, some blinded and paralysed. Thirteen people died. 
 
 Aum Shinrikyo, often shortened to Aum, believed that the end of the world was coming and that those outside the cult would go to hell - unless they were killed by cult members. 
 
 Cult leader Asahara styled the attack as a "holy attempt to elevate the doomed souls of this world to a higher spiritual stage", the Japan Times reports. 
 
 In the months after, members of the cult made several failed attempts to release hydrogen cyanide in various stations. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Witness: Tokyo attack 
 
 The attack shocked Japan, a country that prided itself on low crime rates and social cohesion. 
 
 Scores of Aum members have faced trial over the incident and 13 were sentenced to death, including Asahara. 
 
 Another six are serving life sentences. 
 
 What is the Aum Shinrikyo cult? 
 
 The cult, whose name means "supreme truth", began in the 1980s as a spiritual group mixing Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, later working in elements of apocalyptic Christian prophesies. 
 
 Shoko Asahara, also known as Chizuo Matsumoto, declared himself to be both Christ and the first "enlightened one" since Buddha. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Aum Shinrikyo is believed to still have thousands of followers 
 
 Aum Shinrikyo gained official status as a religious organisation in Japan in 1989 and picked up a sizeable global following. At its peak, Asahara had tens of thousands of followers worldwide. 
 
 The group gradually became a paranoid doomsday cult, convinced the world was about to end in a global war and that only they would survive. 
 
 The cult went underground after the 1995 attack, but did not disappear, eventually renaming itself Aleph or Hikari no Wa. 
 
 Aum Shinrikyo is designated a terrorist organisation in the US and many other countries, but Aleph and Hikari no Wa are both legal in Japan, although designated as "dangerous religions" subject to surveillance. 
 
 It still has followers both in Japan and also worldwide, in particular in some countries of the former Soviet Union. 
 
 In 2016, police in Russia conducted a number of raids on suspected cult members in Moscow and St Petersburg. 
 
 How has the execution gone down in Japan? 
 
 Shizue Takahashi, the widow of a subway worker killed in the attack, said she felt Asahara's execution was fitting. 
 
 "He of course deserves death," she told reporters. "The execution was processed as it should be... so no tears for me at all." 
 
 Japan has executed as many as eight people a year since an effective moratorium ended in 2010. 
 
 The death penalty is only used for serious cases of murder. Officials do not give advance public notice of executions, and those condemned usually learn they are scheduled to die just a few hours beforehand. ||||| This article is over 6 months old 
 
 Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin nerve attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 killed 13 people and caused illness among thousands of others 
 
 The former leader of the doomsday cult that carried out a fatal gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995 was executed on Friday. 
 
 Shoko Asahara, who masterminded the attack in which 13 people died and more than 6,000 others fell ill, was hanged at a detention centre. 
 
 Japan prepares to execute up to 13 members of Aum Shinrikyo cult Read more 
 
 Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, confirmed Asahara’s execution. The justice ministry later confirmed that six other senior cult members were executed on the same day. 
 
 “I think it’s right that he was executed,” said Shizue Takahashi, whose husband, a subway worker, died after removing one of the sarin packages. 
 
 “My husband’s parents and my parents are already dead,” she added. “I think they would find it regrettable that they could not have heard the news of this execution.” 
 
 Kiyoe Iwata, whose daughter died in the attack, said the news had given her peace of mind. “I have always been wondering why it had to be my daughter and why she had to be killed,” she told public broadcaster NHK. ”Now I can visit her grave and tell her this news.” 
 
 Asahara’s execution was the first of 13 former Aum members who have been condemned to death. 
 
 His Aum Supreme Truth cult, which combined a bizarre mix of Buddhist and Hindu meditation along with Christian and apocalyptic teachings, yoga and the occult, once boasted more than 10,000 followers in Japan and an estimated 30,000 in Russia. 
 
 Its members included graduates of Japan’s best universities, who were attracted by promises that they would survive the coming Armageddon – a nuclear attack by the US – by developing sarin, a nerve agent invented by the Nazis, at the cult’s compound in the foothills of Mount Fuji. 
 
 Asahara, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, had also been found guilty of masterminding a 1994 attack on a city in northern Japan in which eight people died and more than 100 were injured. 
 
 The former cult leader had exhausted all of his appeals after he was sentenced to death in 2004. 
 
 The Tokyo subway gas attack began shortly before 8am on 20 March 1995, when five members of the cult punctured plastic bags containing liquid sarin with the sharpened tips of their umbrellas before fleeing. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A commuter being treated by an emergency medical team at a make-shift shelter after being exposed to sarin gas fumes in the Tokyo subway in 1995 Photograph: Junji Kurokawa/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 As the gas spread inside packed subway carriages, commuters started to cough and struggle for breath. Some of those who made it on to platforms and upstairs to street level collapsed, foaming at the mouth and coughing up blood. 
 
 Survivors recalled smelling something that resembled paint thinner before starting to cough uncontrollably. “Liquid was spread on the floor in the middle of the carriage, people were convulsing in their seats. One man was leaning against a pole, his shirt open, bodily fluids leaking out,” Sakae Ito, who was inside on one of the carriages, told Agence France-Presse. 
 
 TV footage showed members of self-defence forces, dressed in hazmat suits and full face masks, descending flights of stairs, still unaware of what had caused the incident. 
 
 The attack was the worst terrorist incident on Japanese soil and rocked the country’s faith in its reputation for public safety. 
 
 Asahara eluded arrest for two months until he was discovered hiding in a tiny space concealed behind a wall, along with piles of cash and a sleeping bag, at the cult’s compound. 
 
 Aum was banned but resurfaced in 2000 as Aleph, whose members claimed they had disowned Asahara and agreed to pay compensation to the gas attack victims. 
 
 Aum Supreme Truth: last Tokyo subway attack suspect is arrested Read more 
 
 There have been claims, however, that some continue to follow Asahara’s teachings and keep photographs of him and audio recordings of his voice for inspiration. 
 
 Several dozen members living at Aleph’s headquarters, three ageing apartment blocks in suburban Tokyo, are kept under 24-hour surveillance. 
 
 Born in 1955 on the southwestern island of Kyushu, Asahara, who was virtually blind, was regarded as a charismatic leader who began to draw recruits to Aum, which had originally started as a yoga school, in the 1980s. 
 
 A vengeful Asahara started targeting members of the public after he and 24 other Aum members unsuccessfully ran in upper house elections in 1990, according to prosecutors. 
 
 Aleph and two smaller splinter groups have about 1,650 followers in Japan and about 460 in Russia, and hold more than 1 billion yen (US$9m) in assets, Kyodo news said, citing data from Japan’s public security intelligence agency. 
 
 Human rights campaigners condemned the use of the death penalty against Aum members. 
 
 Amnesty International said Friday’s executions “do not deliver justice.” 
 
 Wire agencies contributed to this report. ||||| Sources say the former leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that carried out the 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo subways and other crimes has been executed, along with 6 of his former disciples. 
 
 They say Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was executed at the Tokyo detention house on Friday. He was 63. 
 
 They say the 6 others executed on the same day are Yoshihiro Inoue, aged 48; Kiyohide Hayakawa, 68; Tomomasa Nakagawa, 55; Seiichi Endo, 58; Masami Tsuchiya, 53; and Tomomitsu Niimi, 54. ||||| Shoko Asahara, founder of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo and mastermind behind the deadly 1995 nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system — and a number of other horrific crimes in the 1980s and ’90s — was executed on Friday, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa confirmed. 
 
 She also confirmed that six other condemned Aum members — Tomomasa Nakagawa, 55, Kiyohide Hayakawa, 68, Yoshihiro Inoue, 48, Masami Tsuchiya, 53, Seiichi Endo, 58, and Tomomitsu Niimi, 54 — were also executed. 
 
 In total, Asahara, 63, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, was found guilty for his role in 13 crimes that led to the deaths of 27 people, a figure that later was increased to 29. In the Tokyo subway attack, 13 people were killed and more than 6,000 injured. 
 
 The hanging of Asahara has in some ways closed the curtain on the shocking crimes and dramatic events staged by Aum. But it also leaves several critical questions unanswered, because even during his trial, Asahara never explained the actual motivations for the crimes. 
 
 In particular, the 1995 sarin attack in Tokyo is remembered as a watershed event that deeply damaged a long-held sense of security felt by many in postwar Japan. 
 
 Kamikawa deflected questions about the details of the executions, such as the reason for choosing the seven from among others also on death row or the timing. She said she couldn’t comment on “the decisions regarding individual cases” because her statements may “disturb the peace of mind” of those on death row. 
 
 She cited “the pain and suffering of the victims and their families” and her belief that “the members’ death penalties were finalized after plenty of deliberation in court” as reasons for ordering the executions. 
 
 Although Kamikawa declined to specify whether any of those who were executed were appealing their sentences, some media reports have said that at least Inoue had sought a retrial. Those seeking a retrial are usually not executed. 
 
 After the executions were reported, residents near the prisons where the inmates had been detained expressed relief and renewed anger. “They deserve executions. Actually, I think they should have been hanged much earlier” an 84-year-old man said in front of the Tokyo Detention House in Katsushika Ward, where Asahara had been detained. 
 
 A woman in Osaka, who was walking past the Osaka Detention House in the city’s Miyakojima Ward — where two of the executed inmates had been detained — expressed a voice of concern. 
 
 “Now with the executions, I’m worried (Asahara’s) remaining followers could start doing something terrible,” she said. 
 
 Authorities said they were on alert for any actions by followers of the cult’s splinter groups. 
 
 The death penalty for the guru was first handed down by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004 and finalized by the Supreme Court in September 2006. 
 
 The crimes he was convicted of also include the murders of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife, and their 1-year-old son in November 1989, as well as another sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in June 1994. That attack killed eight and left about 600 injured. 
 
 Asahara’s execution was delayed while the lengthy court proceedings involving other key Aum followers accused of being complicit in the crimes played out. The court saga concluded on Jan. 25 of this year. 
 
 In addition to Asahara, 191 Aum members were indicted over a number of criminal acts — including murders, attempted murders, abductions and the production of deadly nerve gases and illegal automatic rifles. Twelve had their death penalty sentences finalized. 
 
 Over the past 10 years, the guru reportedly turned down all requests from outside the prison for a meeting, even from family members. During the trials and interviews with his lawyers, Asahara often remained silent or uttered words that no one could clearly understand. The difficulty in communicating with him prompted his counsel to claim that he was not mentally competent to stand trial. 
 
 In 2006, the Supreme Court, however, rejected a special appeal and finalized the death sentence. The court ruled that Asahara was legally sane and thus could be held responsible for his actions. 
 
 Asahara, born in 1955 in what is now the city of Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, formed the predecessor of Aum Shinrikyo in 1984. 
 
 By around October 1988, the number of lay followers surged to between 3,000 and 4,000 and that of live-in followers was estimated at between 100 and 200. 
 
 In that period, the cult had head offices in Tokyo and Kamikuishiki, a village in Yamanashi Prefecture. It also had branch offices in Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Sapporo, New York and Russia. 
 
 In the vast compound in Kamikuishiki at the foot of Mount Fuji, Aum Shinrikyo, under the instruction of Asahara, built and operated a chemical plant to mass-produce sarin and another to assemble illegal automatic rifles. 
 
 The doomsday cult successfully recruited a number of highly educated young people, including doctors and scientists, some of whom took part in the crimes — a fact that particularly shocked the Japanese public. 
 
 Many Aum members were featured on live TV shows, openly defending the group. The media exposure helped solidify the group’s lasting impact on the public’s collective consciousness. 
 
 Asahara claimed that Armageddon was inevitable and justified the murders of certain people by insisting they would send their souls to a heavenly world, according to court transcripts. 
 
 During a hearing in June 2001, Nakagawa, a former doctor who played a key role in the cult’s production of sarin gas, begged his guru to explain what he was actually thinking when he instructed followers to commit illegal, violent acts. 
 
 In response, Asahara, with his eyes closed, just mumbled words no one could understand, according to media reports. 
 
 “I didn’t enter the priesthood (of Aum Shinrikyo) to produce sarin or choke someone’s neck,” Nakagawa tearfully said during the hearing. 
 
 “Please explain your ideas to the people who believed in you,” Nakagawa recalled saying in vain. 
 
 Nakagawa himself was on death row for the roles he played in the production of sarin gas and the 1989 murders of the Sakamoto family. 
 
 Information from Kyodo added ||||| Tokyo (CNN) Seven members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which carried out the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, have been executed, Japanese officials said Friday. 
 
 Cult leader Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, had been in prison for 22 years before his execution this week. The attack left more than a dozen people dead and thousands injured. 
 
 Twelve other members of Aum Shinrikyo were sentenced to death for their roles in the Tokyo attack. Asahara's death sentence was finalized in 2006, according to public broadcaster NHK, but trials of his co-conspirators dragged on for a further 12 years. 
 
 Since those proceedings finished earlier this year, the days of the Aum Shinrikyo members had been numbered, even as opponents of the death penalty attempted to block the executions. 
 
 Asahara was one of seven members of the cult hanged this week. The others are Tomomasa Nakagawa, Tomomitsu Niimi, Kiyohide Hayakawa, Yoshihiro Inoue, Seiichi Endo and Masami Tsuchiya, according to Japanese Justice Minister Yoko Kawakami. 
 
 Six other people are still sentenced to die in connection to the 1995 attack and other Aum Shinrikyo crimes. The date of their executions is not known. 
 
 Executions in Japan are done in secret, with no advance warning given to the prisoner, their family or legal representatives, according to Amnesty International . Prisoners often only learn hours before that they are to be killed. 
 
 Executions in Japan are carried out in secret and without warnings to prisoners' families or lawyers. 
 
 Shizue Takahashi, a victims group representative and widow of a Toyko Metro employee who died in the sarin attack, told reporters she was "surprised" by the sudden execution. 
 
 "When I think of those who died because of them, it was a pity (my husband's) parents and my parents could not hear the news of this execution," she said. "I wanted (cult members) to confess more about the incident, so it's a pity that we cannot hear their account anymore." 
 
 In a statement Friday, Amnesty said the execution of Asahara and other Aum Shinrikyo members would not deliver justice for the Tokyo attack. 
 
 "The attacks carried out by Aum were despicable and those responsible deserve to be punished. However, the death penalty is never the answer," said Hiroka Shoji, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International. 
 
 "Justice demands accountability but also respect for everyone's human rights. The death penalty can never deliver this as it is the ultimate denial of human rights." 
 
 Photo shows a gate of a Tokyo detention center on July 6, 2018, where Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was hanged for masterminding the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. 
 
 Doomsday beliefs 
 
 Asahara founded Aum Shinrikyo in 1984 and quickly attracted thousands of disciples , combining forecasts of a coming apocalypse -- which would come after the US attacked Japan and turned it into a nuclear wasteland -- with traditional religious teachings and new age tactics. 
 
 Many of Asahara's followers were highly educated scientists and engineers, who helped bring in huge amounts of money to the cult's coffers. 
 
 As the cult grew, the families of members began to raise the alarm, and complaints of brainwashing and abuse within Aum Shinrikyo became more common. 
 
 Despite this, few would have predicted what was to come, and the cult shot to global notoriety with the March 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway, when members of Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas on carriages full of commuters during rush hour. The attack killed 13 people and injured 5,500. 
 
 Asahara and dozens of his followers were arrested in the months that followed, after police raids across the country. 
 
 At a press conference Friday, former Aum Shinrikyo spokesman Fumihiro Joyu said he carried a "heavy shared responsibility" for the group's crimes. 
 
 "I would like to apologize to the victims," he said. "I would like to work on compensation and to make sure such crimes never happen again." 
 
 Aleph, a successor group to Aum Shinrikyo, is still involved in a court case over settlements to the victims of the 1995 and other attacks. Joyu left Aleph in 2006. 
 
 He said that more than 10 years after he left the cult, he had "no special feeling" for Asahara, but had still been somewhat nervous about the potential repercussions for criticizing him in public. With Asahara's execution, he hoped this fear would go away. 
 
 Deadly cult 
 
 Aum Shinrikyo's killings began in November 1989, when lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto -- who was working on a class action case against the cult -- was brutally murdered along with his wife and child. The killing was eventually linked to the cult 
 
 Prosecutors said cult members entered the Sakamotos' home as they slept, injected them with lethal doses of potassium chloride and strangled them. 
 
 Sakamoto's murder and the growing clamor from cult members' families caused increased attention from the authorities, and Aum Shinrikyo began preparing for the end. 
 
 At a sheep farm in rural Western Australia and other properties, cult scientists began testing sarin while others synthesized the VX nerve agent and launched a failed attempt to manufacture automatic rifles. 
 
 On June 27, 1994, seven people were killed and more than 500 hospitalized after Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas from a truck by driving slowly around an apartment complex in Matsumoto, Nagano prefecture. Another victim died in 2008. 
 
 Photo taken Jan. 7, 1990 shows Aum Shinrikyo cult group founder Shoko Asahara (fourth from left) speaking at a press conference in Tokyo to announce a plan to field candidates for the general election. 
 
 Subway attack 
 
 The Matsumoto attack was a warm up to the main event, which began almost eight months later on March 20, 1995, according to a report by the Federation of American Scientists. 
 
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 Five Aum Shinrikyo members boarded subway cars on three different lines in central Tokyo during rush hour, carrying plastic bags filled with sarin. They punctured the bags with the sharpened tips of theirs umbrellas and left them on baggage racks or the floor to seep the deadly gas into the carriages. 
 
 The trains were scheduled to arrive at central Kasumigaseki station within four minutes of each other, and the cult hoped not only to kill everyone on board, but also use the trains to deliver the gas to a massive interchange used by thousands of passengers at a time. 
 
 Fortunately, mistakes made in developing the sarin and its delivery method meant the attack was far less effective than intended, and the group only succeeded in killing 12 and injuring 5,500 people. Another victim died later. 
 
 According to the FAS report, chemical weapons experts estimate that "tens of thousands could have easily been killed" if the attack had been carried out correctly. 
 
 Shizue Takahashi, whose husband was killed by doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo's sarin nerve gas attack while on duty at Tokyo Metro Kasumigaseki Station attends a memorial on March 20, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. 
 
 Arrest and trial 
 
 Dozens of Aum Shinrikyo members were arrested after months of raids by police on hundreds of locations across Japan. 
 
 Asahara himself was arrested in May 1995, and indicted on 17 charges ranging from murder to illegal production of weapons and drugs. 
 
 His trial -- and appeals process -- took years to complete, and gripped Japan, as police continued to seek other cult members linked to the Tokyo and Matsumoto attacks. 
 
 In late 1996, Ashara admitted responsibility for the sarin attack but said he was not personally involved in the crime, saying he had been "instructed by God" to shoulder the blame. At the same time, he warned lawyers they would die if they continued questioning Aum Shinrikyo members. 
 
 After a trial that lasted eight years, Asahara was found guilty of masterminding the attack and sentenced to death in 2004. By 2006, he had exhausted the appeals process. 
 
 His execution was delayed due to ongoing cases against his co-conspirators, the last of whom was arrested in 2012 
 
 Aum Shinrikyo split into Hikari no Wa and Aleph in 2007, and the latter group has apologized for the Tokyo attack, which it blames on "top members of then Aum Shinrikyo." The two groups have around 150 and 1,500 followers respectively, according to Japanese media. ||||| The executions in Japan of seven members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo (Aum) on Friday, including the group’s “guru”, Chizuo Matsumoto, does not deliver justice, Amnesty International said. 
 
 Justice demands accountability but also respect for everyone’s human rights. The death penalty can never deliver this as it is the ultimate denial of human rights. Hiroka Shoji, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty International. Share this Twitter 
 
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 The executions are the first among the 13 people convicted and sentenced to death for their roles in the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and other illegal activities. The subway attack killed 13 people and left thousands more suffering the effects of the nerve gas. 
 
 “Today’s executions are unprecedented in recent memory for Japan. The attacks carried out by Aum were despicable and those responsible deserve to be punished. However, the death penalty is never the answer,” said Hiroka Shoji, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty International. 
 
 “Justice demands accountability but also respect for everyone’s human rights. The death penalty can never deliver this as it is the ultimate denial of human rights.” 
 
 The seven people executed in the early hours of Friday morning were: Chizuo Matsumoto, Tomomasa Nakagawa, Tomomitsu Niimi, Kiyohide Hayakawa, Yoshihiro Inoue, Seiichi Endo and Masami Tsuchiya. The executions were carried out at detention centres across Japan. Some of those hanged may have had requests for a retrial pending. 
 
 In March, Japan again rejected recommendations to reform the country’s death penalty system. The recommendations were put forward by other states as part of a formal review of Japan’s human rights record at the United Nations. 
 
 “Instead of repeating the claim that executions are unavoidable because the public demands it, the Japanese government needs to step up and show leadership on human rights,” said Hiroka Shoji. 
 
 Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender or the method used by the state to carry out the execution and has been campaigning for abolition of the death penalty for over 40 years.
– Japan on Friday executed the leader of a doomsday cult and six of his followers, public broadcaster NHK reports, a mass hanging that had been rumored for months. Chizuo Matsumoto, also known as Shoko Asahara, was the head of Aum Shinrikyo, the group responsible for the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo subway lines that killed 13 and injured more than 6,000 as well as other murders and other nerve gas attacks, one of which killed eight. Thirteen members of the cult had been sentenced to death; six are still awaiting execution. Japan does not carry out executions until all associated cases have been closed, with no more appeals pending; that happened in January, the BBC reports. Matsumoto, 63, had been imprisoned 22 years; his case was finalized in 2006, CNN reports. Matsumoto founded Aum Shinrikyo in 1984, and at its peak in the 1990s the cult had more than 10,000 members in Japan and thousands more in other countries; a successor group still has 1,500 members in Japan. The group's scientists produced nerve gas at its commune at the foot of Mount Fuji as Matsumoto, who claimed to be a messiah, preached what the Guardian describes as "a bizarre mix of Buddhist and Hindu meditation along with Christian and apocalyptic teachings, yoga, and the occult." There were reports of brainwashing and abuse in the cult, and after the 1995 attack dozens of followers were rounded up in police raids. Per the Japan Times, Matsumoto never offered an explanation for the group's crimes. After the executions, Amnesty International released a statement condemning them; it called the mass hanging "unprecedented in recent memory in Japan" and said the death penalty "is the ultimate denial of human rights."