Word: asahara
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Japanese cult leader Shoko Asahara and six top aides were chargedwith murder in theMar. 20 gas attack on Tokyo's subwaysthat killed 12 people. Police had held the cult guru for three weeks while they grilled him in an attempt to get as much information as possible before filing charges. Now the real drama begins: a trial that experts say could go on for decades. Japanese trials don't have daily sessions; hearings are spread out over months. But the outcome is almost certain. Over 99 percent of people tried in Japan are convicted...
...extensively questioned about the sarin attack. In consultation with a psychologist, police found they were able to break Tsuchiya quickly, despite his reputation as a hard-core Aum member. Shoko Egawa, an expert on the cult, offered an explanation: "The best-educated members were really prized by Asahara and did not go through the same indoctrination that the others did. Once someone as honest and serious as Tsuchiya was out from under Asahara's control, it was easy to get him to confess...
...Ikuo Hayashi, 48, Aum's chief medical official, who implicated Asahara. Hayashi, who was arrested for illegally confining an Aum member at one of the rural compounds, reportedly confessed he was among the 10 Aum operatives who had placed sarin on the trains. The order, he said, came specifically from Asahara. The third big catch was Yoshihiro Inoue, 25, who is suspected of organizing the attack. Police caught him in western Tokyo last week and discovered bombmaking explosives in his car, and maps and timetables for the city's subway system at his hideout...
...investigation is far from closed, and many questions remain unanswered. Foremost is why Asahara allegedly ordered the attack. Police are also eager to know if Aum was behind last month's attempted assassination of Tokyo police chief Takaji Kunimatsu and the disappearance in 1989 of a lawyer who was investigating Aum, along with his wife and infant son. Asahara continues to insist he is innocent. Makoto Endo, a lawyer who has visited him in jail and who represents another arrested cult member, says Asahara is distraught because no attorney wants to take his case. When Endo refused because he didn...
Nearly 400 police officers descended on Aum Shinrikyo's headquarters near Mount Fuji, capturing the cult's bearded leader, Shoko Asahara, after finding him hidden in a coffinlike secret chamber four hours after the raid began. He was arrested and held without bail on murder charges connected with the March 20 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment or death by hanging. Asahara denies ordering the attack, but key senior cult members have confessed to having produced sarin-and to having used it in the subway gassing...