Death Penalty News

TOKYO -- Japan on Friday marked the 25th anniversary of a fatal nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway. Tokyo Metro staff, relatives of victims and Transport Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba observed a moment of silence at 8 a.m. at Kasumigaseki subway station on the Hibiya Line to remember those who died in the attack. A moment of silence was observed at five other subway stations. In all, 14 people died and 6,300 were sickened after the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin in five subway trains during co-ordinated rush-hour attacks on March 20, 1995. Thirteen of those killed died by the end of 1996 while the 14th, Sachiko Asakawa, 56, who had been bedridden with severe brain damage following the attack, died on March 10 this year, Kyodo News reported. Thirteen Aum members, including cult leader Shoko Asahara, were executed in 2018, while others are serving prison sentences. The last fugitive was arrested in 2012. In what some believe was an attempt to divert the authorities t...

Indonesia will soon have a new antiterrorism law to replace the current law, which is widely seen as weak, with deliberations on the antiterrorism bill expected to conclude this May or June. Speaking to The Jakarta Post in an interview on Thursday, Enny Nurbaningsih, head of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo administration's team to deliberate the antiterrorism bill, ensured the new legislation could provide security for Indonesians against deadly terror attacks such as those that had occurred recently in numerous places across Indonesia's most populated island of Java. Calls for the government and the House of Representatives to conclude the long-due deliberation on the bill have mounted after the attacks, which were allegedly conducted by an Islamic State (IS)-linked local jihadist organization known as Jamaah Ansharud Daulah (JAD). Enny, who is also head of the Law and Human Rights Ministry's National Law Development Agency (BPHN), said the governme...