Word: aum
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...arrest brought the first spell of relief from the fear that had gripped Japan for two months. The nation had been holding its breath, worried that another horror would occur before police built their case against Aum. On May 5 a cleaning woman in Tokyo's sprawling Shinjuku station found a hydrogen-cyanide gas bomb before it went off. The device had been placed near a ventilation duct that would have spread the gas quickly. It was potent enough to have killed 10,000 people...
...months police swept through the extensive offices, factories and businesses of Aum in search of evidence and arrested dozens of lower-ranking members on a variety of minor charges. They discovered that Aum had as many as 30,000 members in Russia, where the group bought chemical-weapons detection gear, and owned a ranch in Australia, where the sarin gas was tested on sheep. For fear of being seen to be treading on religious freedom, Japanese police were reluctant to question key Aum figures until they had clinching evidence of their guilt. However, after Hideo Murai, a top Aum science...
...break came after the arrest on April 26 of Masami Tsuchiya, 30, a doctoral student in organic chemistry who police said led the effort to make sarin. Charged initially with the minor crime of helping other Aum members evade arrest, he was 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...
...press reports based on police leaks, Tsuchiya admitted he had concocted sarin just before the subway attack. He added that while only 10 liters were used in the Tokyo attack, he had made "several tens of liters" of sarin in a secret laboratory behind Satian No. 7, the huge Aum-owned factory compound also near Mount Fuji that had been the object of police searches in March. He destroyed the rest of the sarin, he claims, to remove evidence...
...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...