JAPAN: Former Aum cult member gets five year prison sentence for delivering parcel bomb material

Record ID: 402503

  • Title: JAPAN: Former Aum cult member gets five year prison sentence for delivering parcel bomb material
  • Date: 30th June 2014
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CULT MEMBERS PERFORMING CULT RITUALS POSTER OF ASAHARA
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAELX9GJOVG6UDV17SVUABZ60K6
  • Story Text: A former Aum Shinrikyo cult member was handed a five year prison sentence on Monday (June 30) for her involvement in a parcel bombing in Tokyo that seriously maimed a government official in 1995.
    Naoko Kikuchi, 42, was arrested in 2012 after 17 years on the run.
    Kikuchi is believed to be a member of the cult behind the deadly attack in Tokyo in the same year. Sarin nerve gas was released simultaneously on five subway trains at the height of the rush hour.
    Twelve people died, thousands fell ill.
    The trial centered on her involvement in transporting material to make the parcel bomb that was later delivered to the then Tokyo governor Yukio Aoshima.
    Kikuchi had pled not guilty, insisting she had no knowledge that the materials she transported were to make the bomb, Japanese media reported.
    Prosecutors had demanded a seven year sentence.
    The parcel exploded in the government offices and blew off the hand of the official that opened it, .
    For 76-year-old Hiroyuki Nagaoka who was present at the hearing, the verdict was bitter-sweet.
    Nagaoka knows the mind-twisting effect the cult has on its followers.
    His son was one such member.
    He forced his son out of the cult after a meeting with cult's founder, Shoko Asahara whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, which convinced him Asahara was a dangerous individual.

    "Five years, well, it's not about how long it is. I can still see that she is still trapped in that weird state of mind. If you are wondering why she hasn't snapped out of her state, that's because of mind control and that is how scary it is. I think it will be good for her to rehabilitate by going to a psychiatrist or something and it is absolutely important for her to think like a human being and return to her former self,," said Nagaoka.
    Nagaoka then proceeded to organize an association for the families of cult members who wanted their sons and daughters out.
    That almost got him killed.
    He was targeted for assassination by the cult when a member ambushed him and tried to apply VX gas, one of the deadliest nerve agents known to man, on him.
    That was January 1995, just months before the cult executed the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that same year.
    His heart stopped, but he came back to life at a hospital in Tokyo.
    He says his feelings are quite conflicted because he knows it could very well have been his son had he not pulled him out of the cult.

    "My feelings are really quite conflicted. It is not something which we can understand and sympathize with and to be brutally honest, I'm confused as how to put this sentence into context. But all I can say for sure is that if people had listened to us, people would have approached that cult with a lot more caution," Nagaoka said.
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