Tokyo Court Discarded Records on Aum Breakup Order in 2006

Tokyo, Nov. 25 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo District Court discarded in 2006 the records of a trial in which it ordered in 1995 the dissolution of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult under the religious corporation law, it has been learned.

Under internal rules of Japan's Supreme Court, the records of trials that attracted wide public attention are subject to "special preservation" for de facto permanent preservation. But the district court did not designate the records of the Aum trial for special preservation, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The now-defunct cult was responsible for a number of crimes including the March 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway system, which claimed the lives of 14 people and injured more than 6,000 others.

Many trial records at Tokyo District Court were found in February 2019 to have been discarded, and during the course of investigations conducted after the finding, the records of the trial on the doomsday cult were confirmed to have been discarded on March 8, 2006, the sources said.

"At the time of the disposal, there wasn't a system for properly keeping the records of trials for special preservation," an official of the district court said, adding that it is difficult to say that appropriate operation in accordance with the purpose of rules and notices had been carried out.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]