Japan:  Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty For Aum Shinrikyo Member

Japanese prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a former senior member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult who has been charged with five counts involving attacks with chemical weapons, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported today (see GSN, Jan 23).

Prosecutors requested the sentence in the closing arguments of the trial of Seiichi Endo, who admitted to helping produce the sarin gas used in the 1995 subway attack that killed 12 people.  Endo had a major role in the attack.  He took part in the planning, made the sarin, put it into bags and distributed preventive medicine to the persons who carried out the attack, according to the indictment.

Endo has also been charged with taking part in a 1994 sarin attack in Matsumoto, Japan, that killed seven people; the attempted murder, using sarin, of an attorney who was assisting cult members that wanted to leave the group and the attempted murder, using VX gas, of another man who was helping people quit the cult, according to Kyodo.

Endo said he acted on the instructions of the cult’s founder, Shoko Asahara, in the 1995 subway attack, but denied any intention to kill and said he did not know the sarin he produced was to be used in the attack.  Endo also denied any intention to kill in the Matsumoto attack and said he was only put on standby at the site (Kyodo/BBC Monitoring, Feb. 12).

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Hamas:  Palestinians Launch New Rockets, Hamas Says Could Carry CW

The firing of two Qassam-2 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel yesterday may foreshadow future attempts by Hamas militants to deliver warheads laced with chemical weapons, according to the Miami Herald.

The rockets fired yesterday were more advanced than previous Qassam rockets and could possibly carry chemical warheads, according to a senior Israeli security official.  Hamas leaders have said the rockets could carry chemical weapons on “nonconventional warheads,” the official said (see GSN, Jan. 2).

The two rockets landed harmlessly near a kibbutz and a farm, four to five miles from the Gaza border.  They do not have a guidance system and are much less powerful than rockets launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, but they travel three times farther than earlier Qassam rockets and could hit a metropolitan target, according to an Israeli army statement.

Officials believe that Palestinians make the rockets — which require only simple explosives for propulsion — domestically and the rockets are supplied by Iran, according to the Miami Herald (Tim Johnson, Miami Herald, Feb. 11).

The Israeli Defense Forces said that the rockets could carry a warhead as large as four to six kilograms, according to the Jerusalem Post.  The Post reported that a Qassam-2 can travel six to eight kilometers, but the IDF said the rockets have a range of 10 to 12 kilometers (Dudkevitch/O’Sullivan, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 11).

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