Editing Shoko Asahara (section)

==Tokyo subway gas attack, arrests, and further incidents==
{{Main|Tokyo subway sarin attack}}
[[File:サティアン.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Aum Shinrikyo facility in Kamikuisshiki]]
On the morning of March 20, 1995, Aum members released a [[binary chemical weapon]], chemically most closely similar to [[sarin]], in a coordinated attack on five trains in the [[Tokyo subway]] system, killing 13 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 more. Some estimates claim as many as 6,000 people were injured by the sarin. It is difficult to obtain exact numbers since many victims are reluctant to come forward.<ref>Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum, Philip Gabriel, ''Underground'', Vintage International, 2001.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref> Prosecutors allege that Asahara was tipped off by an insider about planned police raids on cult facilities and ordered an attack in central Tokyo to divert police attention away from the group. The attack evidently backfired, and police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country.<ref>[[Richard Danzig|Danzig, Richard]], [[Marc Sageman]], Terrance Leighton, Lloyd Hough, Hidemi Yuki, Rui Kotani and Zachary M. Hosford, "[http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_AumShinrikyo_Danzig_1.pdf Aum Shinrikyo:  Insights Into How Terrorists Develop Biological and Chemical Weapons] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324102229/http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_AumShinrikyo_Danzig_1.pdf|date=March 24, 2012}}", ''[[Center for a New American Security]]'', July 2011; accessed July 12, 2018.</ref>

Over the next weeks, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in [[Kamikuishiki, Yamanashi|Kamikuishiki]] on the foot of [[Mount Fuji]], police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian [[Mil Mi-17]] military helicopter. While the finding of [[biological warfare]] agents such as [[anthrax]] and [[Ebola]] [[Cell cultures|cultures]] was reported, those claims now appear to have been widely exaggerated.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Smitheson|first1=Amy E.|title=Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response|date=October 9, 2000|page=77|url=http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/atxchapter3.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131204030836/http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/atxchapter3.pdf |archive-date=2013-12-04 |url-status=live|access-date=June 24, 2015}}</ref> There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people.<ref name=CT1>{{cite book|last=Townshend|first=Charles|title=Terrorism: a very short introduction|year=2011|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press|location=Oxford [u.a.]|isbn=9780199603947|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pii3jii9qA4C&pg=PA116|edition=2nd|access-date=August 7, 2012|page=116|quote=(... enough Sarin in Aum's possession to kill over 4 million people).}}</ref> On March 30, 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the [[National Police Agency (Japan)|National Police Agency]], was shot four times near his house in Tokyo and was seriously wounded. While many suspected Aum involvement in the shooting, the ''[[Sankei Shimbun]]'' reported that [[Hiroshi Nakamura (dissident)|Hiroshi Nakamura]] is suspected of the crime, but nobody has been charged.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/431698|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080321130156/http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/431698|url-status=dead|archive-date=2008-03-21|title=Man confesses to shooting Japan's top cop in 1995|publisher=Japan Today|date=2008-03-20|accessdate=2008-03-23}}</ref>

On April 23, 1995, [[Hideo Murai]], the head of Aum's Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death outside the cult's Tokyo headquarters amidst a crowd of about 100 reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Korean member of [[Yamaguchi-gumi]], was arrested and eventually convicted of the murder. His motive remains unknown. On the evening of May 5, a burning paper bag was discovered in a toilet in Tokyo's busy [[Shinjuku station]]. Upon examination it was revealed that it was a [[hydrogen cyanide]] device which, had it not been extinguished in time, would have released enough gas into the ventilation system to potentially kill 10,000 commuters.<ref name=chrono/> On July 4, several undetonated cyanide devices were found at other locations in the Tokyo subway.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.deseretnews.com/article/425960/HERES-A-CHRONOLOGY-OF-POISON-GAS-ATTACKS-IN-JAPAN.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150322174059/http://www.deseretnews.com/article/425960/HERES-A-CHRONOLOGY-OF-POISON-GAS-ATTACKS-IN-JAPAN.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 22, 2015|title=Here's a chronology of poison gas attacks in Japan|work=[[Deseret News]]| date=July 5, 1995}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/07/04/Four-injured-by-Tokyo-station-gas-fumes/1840804830400|title=Four injured by Tokyo station gas fumes|publisher=United Press International|date=July 4, 1995}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Tucker|first1=Jonathan B.|title=Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons|date=February 2000|page=219|publisher=MIT Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MrPyPP7gkHYC|isbn=9780262700719}}</ref>

During this time, numerous cult members were arrested for various offenses, but arrests of the most senior members on the charge of the subway gassing had not yet taken place. In June, an individual unrelated to Aum had launched a copycat attack by hijacking [[All Nippon Airways Flight 857]], a Boeing 747 bound for Hakodate from Tokyo. The hijacker claimed to be an Aum member in possession of sarin and plastic explosives, but these claims were ultimately found to be false.<ref name="LAT">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=1995-06-25|title=Hijacker Used Clay, Water as Fake Weapons|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-06-25-mn-17159-story.html |access-date=2021-02-13|website=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> Asahara was finally found hiding within a wall of a cult building known as "The 6th Satian" in the Kamikuishiki complex on May 16 and was arrested.<ref name=chrono/> On the same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of [[Yukio Aoshima]], the governor of Tokyo, blowing off the fingers of his secretary's hand.

===After 1995===
On June 21, 1995, Asahara acknowledged that in January 1994 he ordered the killing of a sect member, Kotaro Ochida, a pharmacist at an Aum hospital. Ochida, who tried to escape from a sect compound, was held down and strangled by another Aum member who was allegedly told that he too would be killed if he did not strangle Ochida. [[Fumihiro Joyu]], one of the few senior leaders of the group under Asahara who did not face serious charges, became official head of the organization in 1999. [[Kōki Ishii]], a legislator who formed an anti-Aum committee in the [[National Diet]] in 1999, was murdered in 2002.  At 11:50&nbsp;p.m. on December 31, 2011, Makoto Hirata surrendered himself to the police and was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the 1995 abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, a non-member who had died during an Aum kidnapping and interrogation.<ref>{{cite news|title=Aum Shinrikyo cult fugitive surrenders to Japan police|publisher=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16377178|access-date=January 1, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Tokyo subway attack fugitive surrenders|date=January 1, 2012|agency=AFP|publisher=News.com.au|url=http://www.news.com.au/world/tokyo-subway-attack-fugitive-surrenders/story-e6frfkyi-1226234294557|access-date=January 1, 2012}}</ref><ref>[[Kyodo News]], "[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120102x1.html 16-year Aum fugitive mum on life on run]", ''[[Japan Times]]'', January 2011, pg. 1.</ref>