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USA | The execution I witnessed haunts me. Biden, clear death row before Trump returns: Opinion

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Under Trump, there were 13 executions in his last six months as president. Biden must clear death row now to stop that and what Albert Camus described as the most cold-blooded premeditated murder. On Jan. 14, 2021, I stood in a small chamber in the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, while the federal government carried out an execution. Relegated to a spot 6 feet away from the gurney, I prayed with Corey Johnson, the “Gentle Giant” as he was known on death row.  He was one of the last of 13 people executed under then-President Donald Trump, who carried out an unprecedented killing spree during the final six months of his presidency.

Japan marks 22nd anniversary of Tokyo subway sarin gas attack

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Sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway, March 20, 1995
Sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway, March 20, 1995
TOKYO — Japan on Monday marked the 22nd anniversary of a fatal nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subway.

About 20 Tokyo Metro staff at Kasumigaseki subway station on the Hibiya line held a moment of silence at 8 a.m. to remember two former colleagues who died in the attack. Memorial services were held at five other subway stations.

In all, 13 people died and 6,300 were sickened after the Aum Supreme Truth cult released sarin in five subway trains during co-ordinated rush-hour attacks on March 20, 1995.

Thirteen Aum members, including cult leader Shoko Asahara, remain on death row, while others are serving prison sentences. The last fugitive was arrested in 2012.

In what some believe was an attempt to divert the authorities that Asahara thought were closing in on his base in the foothills of Mount Fuji, he sent five teams of two people to attack the Tokyo subway.

Five adherents—among them a senior medical doctor and several physicists—dumped packages of sarin on busy trains, puncturing them with sharpened umbrella tips, before being driven away from a pre-determined station by their co-conspirators.

The nerve gas, so toxic that a single drop can kill a person, evaporated over the following minutes as thousands of unwitting commuters got on and off each train.

Staff and passengers were among the dead. Many of those sickened only realised what had happened as their symptoms worsened throughout the day and news broadcasts began piecing events together.

Aum was never officially disbanded. It went bankrupt because of the massive damage payments it was forced to make to victims of its crimes.

Former members have continued under different groupings with new names, such as Aleph.

Source: Agence France-Presse, March 20, 2017

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