Final Tokyo gas attack fugitive indicted

TOKYO - Japanese prosecutors on Friday indicted the final suspect to be captured over the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway, which killed 13 people and injured thousands.

Tokyo Prosecutors' Office charged Katsuya Takahashi, a 54-year-old former member of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, with murder and other crimes, Jiji Press said.

The indictment came after police captured Takahashi on June 15, bringing to an end the hunt for those thought to be behind the coordinated release of Nazi-developed sarin, an incident that sowed panic throughout the capital.

A high-profile manhunt had been under way in and around the capital since the arrest of Naoko Kikuchi, 40, another ex-member of the cult, in early June.

Both Kikuchi and Takahashi had been on the run for more than 17 years following the release of sarin on Tokyo's heaving underground system, an attack that formed part of a doomsday vision by the cult's founder.

Takahashi, a one-time guard for Aum guru Shoko Asahara, allegedly served as a driver when the cult's members released the gas in the subway system.

Asahara, a partially blind guru who preached a blend of Buddhist and Hindu dogma mixed with apocalyptic messages, developed an obsession with sarin gas, becoming paranoid that his enemies would attack him with it.

He was arrested at a commune near Mount Fuji two months after the attack on Tokyo and sentenced to hang, having been convicted of crimes resulting in multiple deaths. He remains on death row, along with 12 other cult members.