Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that carried out a deadly sarin attack on Tokyo's subway in 1995, was executed on Friday, local media reported.
Japan media also reports that six other members of the cult have also been executed along with their "guru". All seven died by hanging.
Attack which shocked the world
Asahara and 12 of his followers have been on death row for over a decade for the shocking 1995 chemical attack that killed 13 people and injured thousands more.
His hanging was the first execution in connection with the March 20, 1995 attack which shocked the world and prompted a massive crackdown on the cult.
It paralysed the Japanese capital, turning it into a virtual warzone as injured people staggered out of the underground struggling for breath and with watering eyes.
Some keeled over, foaming at the mouth, with blood streaming from their noses, as the rush hour attack unfolded.
A squad from the Tokyo Fire Department in protective suits, in this file photo taken on March 20, 1995, working near Kasumigaseki Station in Tokyo. Source: Getty
A memorial is seen to commemorate the victims of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo's sarin nerve gas attack on the 23rd anniversary. Source: Getty
The sarin had been released in liquid form on five subway carriages at different points throughout the network.
The first sign of it was a smell similar to paint thinner, but soon commuters began cough uncontrollably, recalled Sakae Ito, who was on the crowded Hibiya line that day.
"Liquid was spread on the floor in the middle of the carriage, people were convulsing in their seats. One man was leaning against a pole, his shirt open, bodily fluids leaking out."
Police were first alerted just after 8:00 am and panic soon set in, with subway workers screaming at people to evacuate and passengers convulsing on carriage floors.
The Japanese Self-Defense Force was called in and descended into the depths in hazmat suits and gas masks to assist the injured and deal with the poison.
Shoko Asahara, leader of the cult group Aum Shinrikyo, sits on a throne in the middle of the stage during a meeting with his followers in Moscow in 1994. Source: Getty
Though concerns about the Aum had already been raised, the attack prompted a massive crackdown on the cult's headquarters and the arrest of Asahara and other group members.
He was sentenced to death after a lengthy prosecution during which he regularly delivered rambling and incoherent monologues in English and Japanese.
Who is Shoko Asahara?
Born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955 on the southwestern island of Kyushu, Asahara changed his name in the 1980s, when the Aum cult was being developed.
Virtually blind, he was seen as a charismatic speaker who cloaked himself in mysticism to draw recruits to the doomsday cult he developed in the 1980s.
He was known for using a mixture of charisma and mysticism to lure followers to the cult.
The "guru" with his wild hair and unkempt beard, once led up to 10,000 followers.
He started calling himself Asahara in the 1980s, when the Aum cult was being developed.
He was admitted to a state boarding school for blind children when he was six, quickly earning a reputation for bullying classmates.
"For him, violence was like a hobby. Once he got angry, there was no way to stop it," a former classmate once said.
"Asahara was talented at brainwashing," said Kimiaki Nishida, a professor of social psychology at Rissho University in Tokyo.
He "lured young people, who felt a sense of emptiness in Japanese society," Nishida told AFP.
Asahara told followers that he would help them acquire "the power of God with the right kind of training" and they would "create a new world" after Armageddon, which he predicted would occur in 1997.
The Aum cult, now renamed Aleph, officially disowned Asahara in 2000, but it has never been banned and experts say their former leader retained a strong influence, with some members using pictures of him and recordings of his voice for meditation.
AUM Shinrikyo leader Shoko Asahara (2nd L) attends a press conference after some of facilities have been raid by police on October 25, 1990 in Tokyo, Japan. Source: Getty
Despite the horror that persists over the Aum's subway attack and other crimes, some experts had warned against the execution of Asahara and his acolytes.
They fear his death may trigger the naming of a new cult leader, possibly his second son.
And the execution of Asahara's followers risks elevating them to "martyrs" in the eyes of remaining cult adherents, warned Taro Takimoto, a lawyer for relatives of cultists, in an interview with AFP earlier this year.
"We should have them talk until they die a natural death so that they help prevent a recurrence," he said.
