1.4 An Important Task for the Defense

Here I would like to touch once more upon the main points in favour of the defendant.

Both in his opening speech and when emphasizing the main points in his accusational speech, the prosecutor entirely neglected the fact the defendant Asahara was firstly a religious person and his community was a religious one. He regarded the community exclusively as a terrorist group involved in committing murders.

That was why at the stage of investigation the defendant Asahara’s fundamental statement, i.e. ‘the most important thing for me is the honor of AUM Shinrikyo and its true teachings’, was not taken into consideration.

‘How did the religious activities of the community and its’ founder result in those tragic events?’ This important question had never been brought up.
So, the main task of the defence was to steer the court to investigate how ordinary religious activities had led to the series of AUM-related incidents.

In order to solve this major problem by establishing our own approach to the case instead of that suggested by prosecutors, we had to go deeper collecting evidence to prove that our point of view was correct.

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