Tokyo: The former leader of a doomsday cult that carried out a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 was executed on Friday, Japanese media reported. Six other cult members were also hanged.

Shoko Asahara was the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo or Aum Supreme Truth cult responsible for releasing sarin gas on five Tokyo subway trains during the rush hour in 1995, killing 13 people and poisoning more than 6000 others.

He was sentenced to death in 2004, one of 13 cult members who ended up on death row and the first to be executed. Public broadcaster NHK TV, citing unidentified sources, said that six other cult members also were hanged.

Asahara, 63, a partially blind former yoga instructor, believed that the United States would attack Japan with nuclear weapons, and that only cult members would survive World War III.