Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

60 • AUM SHINRIKYOon 16 May 1995, while found hiding in a cubbyhole in one of hisgroup’s properties. With the arrest of Asahara and 400 of his followers,who faced charges ranging from kidnapping, to illegal productionof drugs and weapons, to murder, the Japanese governmentmoved to ban the sect under the Anti-Subversive Law in December1995. Despite the ban, the sect continued to recruit new members andoperate in Japan and abroad in Taiwan. The government decision toban the group was overturned in January 1997 on the grounds that thecult posed no further danger to society, but it had lost its tax-exemptstatus in October 1995.On 28 March 1996 the Tokyo District Court declared Aum Shinrikyobankrupt as a result of the expenses for the defense of Asaharaand his followers on criminal charges and also from the effects of thecivil lawsuits filed by those who lost family members or who hadsuffered disabilities from the subway sarin gas attack. In 1997 theUnited States declared Aum Shinrikyo a Foreign Terrorist Organizationpursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death PenaltyAct of 1996. Shoko Asahara and 104 of his followers were tried onseveral charges arising from the sarin gas attack, the murders of cultmembers and enemies, and other cult-related activities. In February2000 the acting leader of the group, Fumihiro Joyu, declared that thegroup, which had changed its name to Aleph, was reorganizing itself.In the following months Aleph publicly distanced itself from Asaharaand the sarin gas attack.On 27 February 2004 Shoko Asahara was convicted for the murdersof 12 people killed in the Tokyo subway gas attack and alsofor the deaths of 13 other people, including cult members and cultopponents whom he had ordered murdered, and was condemned todeath. On 16 September 2006 the Supreme Court of Japan upheld thedeath sentence against Asahara. The previous day, about 250 PublicSecurity Intelligence Agency officers raided 25 of the cult’s officesaround the country to preempt any violent reaction to the pendingnews from the Supreme Court. Prior to Asahara’s sentencing, 11other cult members had also been convicted and sentenced to hangfor the sarin gas attacks and other murders.By late 2006 the renamed Aum Shinrikyo cult had dwindled toabout 1,650 members in 13 locations throughout Japan and had about300 followers in Russia. While the current cult leader, Fumihiro Joyu,claimed that the cult, now known as Aleph, had renounced violence