The family of a former Aum Shinrikyo cult member plans to file for a retrial after he was executed in July for his role in the deadly 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attack and other crimes committed by the group, a source with knowledge of the matter said Friday.
Yoshihiro Inoue, 48, had filed for a retrial at the Tokyo High Court in March over the sarin attack that left 13 people dead and over 6,000 ill, as well as the fatal confinement of a notary clerk the same year, after his death sentence was finalized in January 2010 for murder and other crimes in 10 cases.
Inoue, a close aide of cult leader Shoko Asahara, claimed the life sentence given to him by a lower court was appropriate as he was not involved in the death of the notary clerk, Kiyoshi Kariya, who died after being abducted and injected with an anesthetic by the group in February 1995.
But court procedures for his retrial filing were terminated in August after Inoue was executed on July 6 along with Asahara and five other members of the cult. Six other Aum members were executed later in the month.
Death row inmates who have filed for retrials are generally not executed in Japan. In the case of the former Aum members, 10 of the 13 executed had filed for retrials. None of the retrial requests had been granted.
