The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office announced Tuesday that it will scale down its indictments against Aum Shinrikyo members over their alleged involvement in two fatal poison gas attacks, one in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994, and the other the 1995 Tokyo subway attack.
In an attempt to speed up the trials, prosecutors reduced the number of named attempted murder victims to be included in their indictments from 3,794 to 14 in connection with the March 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system, and from 144 to four in the June 1994 sarin attack in Matsumoto.
The prosecutor's office also sent a letter explaining its decision to all of the survivors and victims' families Tuesday, assuring them that removing some of the victims from the indictments will not harm their attempts to win redress in civil suits. The 12 killed in the Tokyo attack and the seven fatalities in the 1994 gassing will still be listed in the indictments.