A former Japanese cult leader accused of ordering a 1995 gas attack on Tokyo subway trains that killed 12 has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of all 13 charges against him.
Prosecutors demanded that Shoko Asahara, 48, the former leader of Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth Sect), be hanged for masterminding the subway attack and separate crimes that killed another 15 people.
The sight of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations stunned the Japanese public, long accustomed to crime-free streets, and raised concern worldwide about the ease of making weapons of mass destruction.
Japan's fears of terror attacks have mounted since the September 2001 attacks in the United States and the controversial dispatch this month of Japanese troops to help rebuild Iraq.
Defence lawyers for Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, are expected to appeal against the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court, starting another lengthy legal process that could take another decade. His trial took eight years.
Asahara's sect combined supernatural forecasts of a coming apocalypse - it predicted the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland - with a frightening ability to produce high-tech modes of mass destruction.