April 10, 2003. On that day at the 253rd open sitting of the Court I asked the defendant Asahara the questions quoted below, bearing in mind the defendant’s presumption of innocence and not holding him responsible for the conspiracy [which was not proved].
As AUM’s founder do you believe that your disciples are responsible for the crimes?
Are the actions of your disciples in agreement with your teachings or do they contradict them?
Why do you think a series of such crimes could have been committed at all?
Why were you unable to prevent the crimes of your disciples being at the head of the organization?
What’s your opinion about these tragic events?
What do you as the founder think of religious and social responsibilities in connection with the tragic incidents perpetrated by your disciples?
What sort of a world were you going to create, and why had those incidents taken place as a result?
We, the lawyers, admit that you are an outstanding religious leader and that is why we ask you these questions. If it were otherwise, we would not put you any such questions.
As usual, there was complete silence in response.
As I mentioned in the previous chapter the defendant Asahara stopped speaking at all at an early stage [of the trial], and he did not speak to his lawyers either. However, he kept silence not only during the Court sittings, but 24 hours a day for more than six years in prison. I think it is hardly possible if you have no strong religious motive and a great strength of mind.
We understood this silence as a manifestation of the defendant’s strong will.
We thought that the defendant Asahara as a religious leader believed himself responsible for what had happened. But this responsibility is entirely different from that in the Criminal Code and from what makes corpus delicity, i.e. the responsibility for a conspiracy.
To make this issue absolutely clear we insisted that to incriminate a conspiracy, which is considered a criminal responsibility, the Court needed concrete evidence, and the trial could only continue if it passed judgments based on this concrete evidence.
As a matter of fact, this had to have formed the basis for the Court sittings just from the start. However, the prosecutor completely ignored this problem either deliberately or unwittingly. And he entirely refused to take into consideration the fact that the defendant Asahara was first and foremost a religious leader.
January 7, 2007 at 11:23 pm |
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