NTI - Global Security Newswire, 15 Jul 2009.

A Japanese court has rejected an appeal on behalf of the former leader of a cult that released sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo subway system and the city of Matsumoto in the 1990s, Kyodo News reported today.

The Tokyo District Court in 2004 sentenced Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara, 54, to death for crimes that included the sarin attacks; Japan's Supreme Court affirmed the ruling in 2006.

One of Asahara's daughters last year sought a retrial for her father, a request dismissed in March by the district court. The Tokyo High Court denied the woman's appeal of that decision, stating that material said to constitute new evidence would not alter the death sentence.

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