Fighting for Mr. Asahara’s Religious Garments

The first sitting of Mr. Asahara’s trial was opened in the Tokyo District Court on April 24, 1996. There were over 12,000 people who wanted to attend it on that day, so the queue extended as far as nearby Hibiya Park. The sitting was opened at 10 a.m. in the biggest courtroom of the Tokyo Court – Courtroom 104. The presiding judge, two associate judges and a supplementary judge were sitting in a row on the platform. On the left (if you looked at them from the seats for the audience) there were eight police officers and on the right, facing them, there were twelve state lawyers.

The defendant, Mr. Asahara, was brought into the courtroom at 10.02. The audience closely watched his every gesture. And when the presiding judge was about to declare the sitting open, I spoke first, ‘The defendant would like to attend the sitting in red-violet religious garments[1]. This is an important freedom of choice for the defendant to wear what he wants. [If it is impossible] we would like the court to allow the defendant to appear [at the sittings] at least in white garments’.

Court sittings usually proceed in the following order: at first the questions are put to identify the accused to be certain that this person is the same as the one mentioned in the indictment, next comes the reading of the indictment, then the court asks the accused questions or ask his lawyers wheather they acknowledge or deny the facts stated in the indictment. Apart from that, the prosecutor makes an opening speech reading out the facts, which he is going to prove by evidence. There are usually no contradictions between the judges, the accused and the lawyers about this procedure. But that time it was different.

We wanted to bring to the prison the religious garments usually worn by Mr. Asahara, but were refused to do so. We were told that if he (Mr. Asahara) was allowed to wear them in prison, it would inspire AUM followers and that might cause public disturbances.

The court also did not give the accused permission to wear his religious garments at the sittings. Then the lawyers’ team made a compromise, ‘Let it be not the red-violet religious garments worn by the founder of the organization, but the white ones worn by ordinary followers’. But we were refused that either. Finally, we had no choice but to decide on the dark-blue tracksuit.

As a matter of fact, the court has to protect the freedom of the accused to appear in the courtroom wearing the clothes he chooses himself. If a student puts on his [favorite] clothes or an office worker puts on his suit, what’s the difference? The judge himself wears special black garments.

We wanted the court to allow Mr. Asahara to wear those garments, because we wished to accentuate that he was a religious person and thus to uphold his honor. But from the very first the judges alongside with the mass media considered Mr. Asahara an enemy. And they had fears that if they made the slightest concession, then both ordinary people and media people would bombard them with accusations.

To tell the truth, Mr. Asahara did not care at all about what he worn, he was completely indifferent to his clothes.

The second stumbling block was whether to cut down the reading of the indictment or to read it out in full.

The accused was charged with murders and attempted murders in the sarin attack. The list of 3938 victims of the attack was submitted, and if it was read out in full, i.e. the name, the incident location where the person was injured, and how serious the injury was, it would take 3 to 4 hours. And the court came to a decision: in order to close the sitting at least a bit earlier the prosecutor had only to read out the data about victims who were badly injured [in the gas attack].

But the indictment is something that underlies all legal proceedings. It specifies what precisely the accused is charged with. It was especially important [in Mr. Asahara’s case] because Mr. Asahara could only listen to what was written in the indictment being unable to see. That was why it was necessary to read it out in full.

To tell the truth, in this case we really might drop off the hooks. However, because the accused was charged with such serious criminal offenses as murders and attempted murders, reading out the short version of the inictment to save the time would be equivalent to showing disrespect both to the court and to Mr. Asahara. We were strongly against it and demanded that the indictment should be read out in full, but agreed to its being read out in such a way as not to take so much time (that is more quickly than usual).

And then the court suddenly declared that the accused had to listen standing up to what the prosecutor would be reading. But there is no such clause in the law that the accused must listen to the indictment standing up! Perhaps there are such cases but only as tradition. It would be nothing else but a torture – to make Mr. Asahara, who was blind, to stand up for a few hours listening to the indictment.

So, to spite us the court decided to make Mr. Asahara suffer, since we persisted in reading out the indictment in full. And if we did not like it, to make us agree to reading the short version. It just came down to a quarrel the children might have in a sandbox.

It was due to a desperate protest on our part that the court unwillingly gave Mr. Asahara permission to listen sitting down. Nevertheless, he had to stand up for the first 30 minutes by the demand of the court.

The third issue had to do with TV shooting prior to the court sitting. Because that trial had attracted a lot of public attention, TV people wanted to show the courtroom before the sitting was opened. But the lawyers from our team refused to take their seats during the shooting. The trial was not a show.

What feelings did they want to stir up in viewers showing the courtroom where only the judges, the prosecutor and the lawyers were present? It was just a cheep trick.

But the court asked, ‘Could anybody from your team, even one person, take his lawyer’s seat? After all, the media helps us a lot. Why not meet them half-way?’ The court must rise above it. How can it administer justice if it comes under the influence of the mass media?

The sitting opened with questions to identify the accused. The presiding judge asked questions about his name, place of residence, date of birth and occupation. What answers would he give? What name? To humiliate the accused, media people stubbornly used his secular name instead of his religious name.

The prosecutor, who refused to acknowledge the accused as a religious person, wrote down in the indictment ‘occupation – unemployed’. Trying to restore Mr. Asahara’s honor at least to some extent, we were going to declare publicly that he was above all a religious person.

As the defendant’s lawyers we prepared beforehand the answers to the questions to be asked to identify him, but he remained absolutely indifferent to it. However, in court he answered them following our advice.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Shoko Asahara.’

“Isn’t your name Chizuo Matsumoto?’

‘I don’t use that name.’

‘When were you born?’

‘March 2, 1955.’

‘What’s your permanent address?’

‘I don’t remember it at all.’

‘It’s XXX, isn’t it?’

‘No, I don’t remember.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You live in XXX, don’t you?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘What’s your job?’

‘I’m the leader of AUM Shinrikyo.’

‘The indictment says that you are unemployed… So you are the leader of AUM Shinrikyo, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

After the presiding judge asked the prosecutor, ‘Can the real name, permanent address and place of residence remain as they are in the indictment?’ and the latter answered, ‘Yes, this is so, Your Honor’, there were no more questions to identify the accused.

Then the prosecutor took over and began reading out the lengthy indictment. But the point was that this indictment did not say a word about what in reality Mr. Asahara had done. It only stated that Mr. Asahara was charged with a conspiracy with those who committed the crimes. But this writing said absolutely nothing about when, where and who he conspired with.

However, it is the question of primary imporatnce for the accused – to understand what he is charged with. That must be specified. Until corpus delicity and the prosecutor’s arguments become clear, the trial is impossible.

We demanded that the indictment was clarified, ‘Still, what has Mr. Asahara done?’

But the prosecutor refused to answer. And the court took his side and rejected our uncomfortable questions.

That means that not only the court failed to remain neutral, but from the very beginning it did not intend to make clear the true state of affairs.

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[1] A high-neck shirt worn over the trousers and trousers; both very simple in style (– editor).

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