TOKYO, July 6 - RIA Novosti, Xenia Naka. In Japan, the ex-head of the religious sect Aum Shinrikyo * Shoko Asaharu was hanged on Friday, NHK reported.

This is the first death sentence of thirteen, which were made against the former leaders of the sect. It is expected that on Friday will enforce another seven verdicts.

The sect "Aum Shinrikyo" * ("The Teaching of the Truth of AUM" *) was organized by Shoko Asahara (Tizuo Matsumoto) in 1987. Its number reached, according to various sources, from 30 to 50 thousand people, of which more than ten thousand - in Russia.

In 1994, adepts of the sect sprayed sarin gas in the city of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture, killing seven people. In March 1995, sectarians sprayed sarin in the Tokyo metro, thirteen people were killed and 6,300 poisonings. The police arrested about 30 leaders of the sect, 13 of them, including Shoko Asahara, were sentenced to death sentences, which until today were not carried out.

This was due to the fact that the three leaders managed to escape, and the police did not lose hope of finding them, and the prosecutor's office - to bring charges. It was necessary to remove from the condemned testimonies on the cases of the three hiding leaders. After 17 years, they arrested them, and in 2015 the last sentence was pronounced against the leadership of the sect.

In the spring of last year, the sentenced were distributed to different prisons, which means preparing for execution of death sentences. Among them was Kiyohide Khayakawa, who was the military minister in the organization. In 1993, he supervised the construction of a plant for the production of sarin in a division of the sect in Japan. In the early 1990s Hayakawa was a frequent guest in the offices of the organization in Russia, he was engaged in the purchase and delivery of Kalashnikov assault rifles and the Mi-8 helicopter to Japan.

Shoko Asaharu was left in Tokyo, where he was executed. In recent years, he suffered from dementia, he did not manage to achieve clear testimony, the convict refused to meet with his family and lawyers.