♯２ Rejection of visitation after three-month visit to the Detention House

About a month after the appeal trial began, our father’s defense attorney visited the Tokyo Detention House two to three times a week and continued to request a meeting with our father.  However, our father was never brought to the interview room.

                         

On June 8, 2004, Attorney Matsushita, a friend of Attorney Matsui, also accepted our father’s defense.

The defense attorneys were at a loss as they were never successful to meet our father.  They were unable to confirm our father’s intention.  They did not even know whether or not he wanted to appeal.  They were in anguish, wondering if they should begin a trial without knowing the intention of the person in question.

It seems that the Court was also troubled as they hoped the defense attorneys to submit the statement of reasons for appeal (document stating the reasons of appeal) as soon as possible, even though they claimed it impossible to write the statement of reasons for appeal without meeting the person in question.  Based on the flow of communication between the defense attorneys and the Court at that time, the Tokyo Detention House might have received some kind of pressure about visitation privileges and our father suddenly began to be brought to the interview room.

We heard it was on July 29 when defense attorneys were able to meet our father for the first time.

The Detention House refused the defense attorneys’ request of visitation more than 36 times since they began to request visitation on April 4., i.e., five long months after appeal.

♯１ Even we as his family thought he was malingering.

Our father was arrested on May 16, 1995.  Once arrested, the Court prohibits visitation by people except defense attorneys when there are accomplices in principle.  Visitation was prohibited soon after our father's arrest, since there were multiple accomplices who were believed to be perpetrators in our father's case.  All we could do as his family was to bring things in, and our father would request us to bring food, etc. and thanked us in the beginning.

The principle of presumption of innocence where one is considered as innocent until proven guilty in trial does not function in Japan, and our father was treated as a key plotter of a violent crime by the mass media, etc. even at the time of arrest when nothing was clarified.  Therefore, no one wanted to become his defense attorney upon his arrest, and after some twists and turns, 12 defense attorneys were appointed by utilizing the public defender system for the first court where the government appoints attorneys.

Our father's first trial was held at the Tokyo District Court on April 24, 1996.  The Japanese courts essentially adopt the principle of a three-court trial process.  A trial is held at a district court as the first court, a high court as the second court and the Supreme Court as the third court in many cases.

Around October to November of the same year, defense attorneys cross-examined a former disciple of our father named Yoshihiro Inoue, who was believed to be one of the accomplices.  Mr. Inoue was almost the only witness who supported the prosecutors' argument claiming that our father instructed in the limousine to release sarin at subway stations (so-called "limousine plotting") in those days.  He subsequently withdrew his testimony at the trial of accomplices, not our father's; however our father's guilty verdict has not been overturned.

Our father's mental aberration obviously began around this time.  He started to say irrelevant things that did not make sense in the courtroom, i.e., so-called "irregular speech," and delivery of goods stopped being accepted in early 1997.  It is probably because he was already in the condition of not being able to indicate his intention around this time, as he would have had to indicate his intention to receive delivered goods.  Defense attorneys lost visitation privileges around the same time.  We did not know anything in those days, and just assumed that our father was acting to be ill in order to establish an advantageous position with his trial.  It was difficult for us to admit our gentle father whom we respected was mentally ill, and to know that judges who saw our father closer than ourselves after his arrest as well as mass media treated him as malingering.  The trial at the first court concluded on February 27, 2004, and the death sentence was received.

12 public defenders appointed for our father for the first court appealed on the same day on his behalf as he was even unable to speak, and all of them resigned.  Within the same day, Attorney Matsui was appointed as the defense attorney for the appeal trial, who had been watching over our family since 2000.

It was around this time when we began to be involved in our father's trial.

♯０： Introduction

We are children of Shoko Asahara, the founder of former Aum Shinrikyo.

We have 6 siblings, and we were children from 1 year old to 16 years old when our blind father was arrested as a key plotter of 13 incidents including the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

It was only for a short period of time after his arrest that our father was able to use restrooms as a normal person, eat meals, and have conversation with his attorneys.  Our father's first trial was held on April 24, 1996.  His condition changed around fall of the same year, and soon after that, he started to be brought to a courtroom wearing a diaper.

Our father was not mentally able to face trial on his own will, so only his physical body was placed in the defendant's seat in the courtroom.  The death sentence was then received on February 27, 2004.

Our father received the death sentence without knowingly standing trial.

When the trial went into the second court, we pleaded for him to receive medical treatment to the Tokyo Detention House where our father is imprisoned as well as to the Court with us and father's attorneys.  However, the fact that he is ill might have been a very inconvenient fact, and the Tokyo Detention House and the Court refused his treatment, claiming that he is healthy.

Our father never stood trial in the second court or spoke a word, and the death sentence was decided on September 15, 2006.

Now, our father is not allowed to meet anyone, and lies neglected in the condition of discharging feces and urine.  We hope he will be treated and return to the state of a human being one day.  We would like to talk with our father, and ask if he really led the sarin gas attack on the subway system.

We would like to write about the history of our father's trial.  It is a long story, but please kindly stay with us.