Shoko Asahara, the founder of the religious cult group Aum Shinrikyo, was trialed as the mastermind behind the crimes perpetrated by his followers, including the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack.
Some critics[weasel words] asserted that the arrest was made because prosecutors were dissatisfied with Yasuda's court tactics to delay the trial as long as possible to avoid the likely death sentence on Asahara.
[11] Yasuda was charged with advising the Singaporean real estate developer Sun Chungli and his son Naoaki to set up a dummy company to hide assets.
Yasuda was accused by the police of conspiring with Sun to hide rental income of approximately 200 million yen by using a dummy company by the name of Wide Treasure.
[12] Yasuda's reason for defending the accused who are labelled by society as highly vicious criminals is that he believes their chance of a fair trial is taken away by media bashings.
Yasuda fears the recent trend by the media to label people as vicious villains to bury the possibility of a legitimate trial for the accused as a signal of a crisis of democracy in Japan.
Yasuda criticizes the premise of modern Japanese law that deviates from justice as the need for assumed innocence has increasingly become a prerequisite for acquittal; he sees this as a crisis in the judicial system.
[13] Shikei Bengonin (死刑弁護人), a documentary directed by Junichi Saito that explores the issue of capital punishment with a focus on Yasuda, was released in theaters on June 30, 2012.