Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.

Shoko Asahara , born Chizuo Matsumoto , was a Japanese cult leader and terrorist who founded and led the doomsday cult known as Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, and was also involved in several other crimes. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004, and his final appeal failed in 2011. In June 2012, his execution was postponed due to further arrests of Aum members. He was ultimately executed along with other senior members of Aum Shinrikyo on July 6, 2018.

Aleph , better known by their former name Aum Shinrikyo , is a Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for the Matsumoto sarin attack the previous year.

The Tokyo subway sarin attack was a chemical domestic terrorist attack perpetrated on 20 March 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on three lines of the Tokyo Metro during rush hour, killing 13 people, severely injuring 50, and causing temporary vision problems for nearly 1,000 others. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatachō, where the National Diet is headquartered in Tokyo.

February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 307 days remain until the end of the year.