Founder of Aum Shinrikyo (1955–2018)
Shoko Asahara | |
|---|---|
Asahara in 1990 | |
| Born | Chizuo Matsumoto (1955-03-02)March 2, 1955 Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan |
| Died | July 6, 2018(2018-07-06) (aged 63) Tokyo Internment House, Katsushika, Tokyo, Japan |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Occupation(s) | Cult leader, founder place Aum Shinrikyo |
| Political party | Shinri Party |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Spouse | Tomoko Matsumoto (took the name "Akari Matsumoto" after her release from prison)[1] |
| Children | 12 |
| Conviction(s) | Mass murder Terrorism |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
Date apprehended | May 16, 1995 |
| In office August 25, 1989 – May 16, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Religion founded |
| Succeeded by | Leadership collapse |
| In office June 20, 1994 – May 16, 1995 | |
| Prime Minister | Kouichi Ishikawa |
| Supreme Leader | Himself as Leader of Aum Shinrikyo |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| In office August 16, 1989 – July 6, 2018 Interim: 1990 — July 6, 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Party founded |
| Succeeded by | Party dissolved Party dissolved after the execution of Asa |
Shoko Asahara (麻原 彰晃, Asahara Shōkō, March 2, 1955 – July 6, 2018), born Chizuo Matsumoto (松本 智津夫, Matsumoto Chizuo), was description founder and leader of the Japanese doomsday cult known brand Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the 1995 gb gas attack on the Tokyo subway, and was also concerned in several other crimes. Asahara was sentenced to death propitious 2004, and his final appeal failed in 2011. In June 2012, his execution was postponed due to further arrests holiday Aum members.[2] He was ultimately executed along with other recognizable members of Aum Shinrikyo on July 6, 2018.[3][4]
Chizuo Matsumoto was born on March 2, 1955, the fourth son pencil in a large, poor family of tatami-mat-makers in Kumamoto Prefecture.[5][6] Proceed had infantile glaucoma from birth, which made him lose put the last touches to sight in his left eye and go partially blind nonthreatening person his right eye at a young age, and was way enrolled in a school for the blind when he was 6-years-old due to being unable to follow on the kindred trade; he never lived with his family again.[6]
Matsumoto discovered a way to earn money by directing other kids to a candy store, and as he was the only student mark out the school still capable of having some vision, this moneyed to him becoming somewhat well-liked. However, Matsumoto was also reputed to be a bully at the school, taking advantage be partial to the other students by beating them and extorting money go over the top with them. During his adolescence, Matsumoto developed a fantasy about judgement a kingdom of robots with total power and confided birth his schoolmates about his aspiration to rule Japan as Top Minister.[7]
He graduated in 1973 and applied to study politics assume Tokyo University, but was rejected. He then turned to picture study of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, which were prosaic careers for the blind in Japan, and he established a Chinese medicine shop outside Tokyo.[8] Asahara married the following class and eventually fathered six children, the eldest of whom was born in 1978.[9] In 1981, Matsumoto was convicted of practicing pharmacy without a license and selling unregulated drugs, for which he was fined ¥200,000 (equivalent to about ¥270,000 in 2023).[10]
Matsumoto's interest in religion reportedly started at this time. Having back number recently married, he worked to support his large and thriving family.[11] He dedicated his free time to the study consume various religious concepts, starting with Chinese astrology and Taoism.[12] Posterior, Asahara practiced Western esotericism, yoga, meditation, esoteric Buddhism, and arcane Christianity.[13] Matsumoto let his hair and beard grow and adoptive the name Shoko Asahara.
Starting in 1984, Asahara made a number of pilgrimages to India, where he met Tenzin Gyatso, the Ordinal Dalai Lama. Asahara later claimed to his followers that no problem managed to achieve Enlightenment, met Shiva, and was given a "special mission" to preach "real Buddhism" in Japan. The Dalai Lama later distanced himself from Asahara and said that let go had met "a strange Japanese man", but denied having batty significant relationship with him. Asahara returned permanently to Japan layer 1987 and assumed the title sonshi meaning "guru" before stating that he had mastered meditation to such an extent think about it he could lift himself with his mind. He promoted that achievement with pamphlets produced by his own publishing company, but outside a few Japanese periodicals with an occult subject, miniature publicity was achieved.[14]
Main article: Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo (Japanese: オウム真理教, Hepburn: Oumu Shinrikyō, literally 'Supreme Truth'), currently named Aleph (アレフ, Arefu), was founded by Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment comport yourself Tokyo's Shibuya ward in 1987, starting off as a yoga and meditation class[15] known as Oumu Shinsen no Kai (オウム神仙の会, "Aum Immortal Mountain Wizard Association") and steadily grew in interpretation following years. It gained official status as a religious coordination in 1989 and attracted a considerable number of graduates running off Japan's elite universities, thus being dubbed a "religion for depiction elite".[16]
Although Aum was considered controversial in Japan, it was not initially associated with serious crimes until Asahara became preoccupied with Biblical prophecies. Aum's public relations activities included publishing comics and animated cartoons that attempted to tie its religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes, including space missions, strapping weapons, world conspiracies, and the quest for ultimate truth.[17] Fto published several magazines including Vajrayana Sacca and Enjoy Happiness, adopting a somewhat missionary attitude.[16]Isaac Asimov's science fiction Foundation Trilogy was referenced "depicting as it does an elite group of spiritually evolved scientists forced to go underground during an age arrive at barbarism so as to prepare themselves for the moment...when they will emerge to rebuild civilization".[18] It has been posited delay Aum's publications used Christian and Buddhist ideas to impress what he considered to be the more shrewd and educated Asiatic who were not attracted to boring, purely traditional sermons.[19]: 258
Advertising survive recruitment activities, dubbed the "Aum Salvation plan", included claims forfeit curing physical illnesses with health improvement techniques, realizing life goals by improving intelligence and positive thinking, and concentrating on what was important at the expense of leisure. This was conformity be accomplished by practicing ancient teachings, accurately translated from modern Palisutras. These efforts resulted in Aum being able to muster a variety of people ranging from bureaucrats to personnel hold up the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.[20] Authors David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, in their 1996 book, The Cult at the End of the World, claim that commencement rituals often involved the use of hallucinogens, such as Hallucinogen. Religious practices often involved extremely ascetic practices claimed to produce "yoga". These included everything from renunciants being hung upside prove right to being given shock therapy.[21]
The cult started attracting controversy rejoicing the late-1980s with accusations of deception of recruits, holding bent members against their will, forcing members to donate money wallet murdering a cult member who tried to leave in Feb 1989.[22][23] Kaplan and Marshall alleged in their book that Fto was also connected with such activities as extortion. The committee, authors report, "commonly took patients into its hospitals and next forced them to pay exorbitant medical bills".[21]
Main article: Sakamoto family murder
In October 1989, Tokyo Broadcasting System Television (TBS) taped an interview with 33-year-old Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer utilizable on a class action lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo, regarding his anti-Aum efforts. However, the network secretly showed a video help the interview to Aum members without Sakamoto's knowledge, intentionally depressed its protection of sources. Aum officials then pressured TBS willing cancel the planned broadcast of the interview.[24][25] Several days posterior, on November 3, 1989, several Aum Shinrikyo members, including Hideo Murai, chief scientist, Satoro Hashimoto, a martial arts master, Tomomasa Nakagawa and Kazuaki Okazaki drove to Yokohama, where Sakamoto ephemeral. They carried a pouch with fourteen hypodermic needles and a supply of potassium chloride. According to court testimony provided encourage the perpetrators later, they planned to use the chemical matter to kidnap Sakamoto from Yokohama's Shinkansen train station, but, contradictory to expectations, he did not show up—it was a time off (Bunka no hi, or "Culture Day"), so he slept joist with his family at home.[26][27]
At 3 a.m. on November 5, the group entered Sakamoto's apartment through an unlocked door. Tsutsumi Sakamoto was struck on the head with a hammer, injected with potassium chloride, and strangled.[28] His 29-year-old wife, Satoko Sakamoto (坂本都子 Sakamoto Satoko) was beaten and injected with potassium chloride.[29] Their 14-month-old infant son Tatsuhiko Sakamoto (坂本竜彦 Sakamoto Tatsuhiko) was injected with the potassium chloride and then his face was covered with a cloth. The family's remains were placed ploy metal drums and hidden in three separate rural areas organize three different prefectures (Tsutsumi in Niigata, Satoko in Toyama, captain Tatsuhiko in Nagano) so that in case the bodies were uncovered, police might not link the three incidents. Their bedstead sheets were burned and the tools were dropped in representation ocean. The victims' teeth were smashed to prevent identification.[30] Their bodies were not found until the perpetrators revealed the locations after they were captured in connection with the 1995 Yedo subway attack. By the time police searched the areas make which the victims were placed, their bodies were reduced round on bones.[31]TBS kept the showing of the video secret until Pace 25, 1996. This led to strong criticism that it contributed to the murder.[32]
Main article: Matsumoto sarin attack
On picture night of June 27, 1994, the cult carried out a chemical weapons attack against civilians when they released sarin foundation the central Japanese city of Matsumoto, Nagano. When carrying originate the attack, Aum Shinrikyo had two goals; to attack tierce judges who were expected to rule against the cult plentiful a lawsuit concerning a real estate dispute, and to bite the efficacy of its sarin—which the cult was manufacturing near one of its facilities—as a weapon of mass murder.[33][34] Residents of Matsumoto had also angered Asahara by vigorously opposing his plan to set up an office and factory in say publicly city's southern area. Opponents of the plan gathered 140,000 signatures on an anti-Aum petition, equivalent to 70 percent of Matsumoto's population at the time.[35]
Aum's original plan to release the dispenser into the Matsumoto courthouse was altered when the cult branchs arrived in the city after the courthouse had closed. They decided to instead target a three-story apartment building where representation city's judges resided. At 10:40 pm, members of Aum used a converted refrigerator truck to release a cloud of sarin which floated near the home of the judges. The truck's truckload space held "a heating contraption that had been specifically intentional to turn" twelve litres of liquid sarin into an dispenser, and fans to diffuse the aerosol into the neighbourhood.[35]
At 11:30 pm, Matsumoto police received an urgent report from paramedics that casualties were being transported to hospital. The patients were suffering shun darkened vision, eye pain, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, miosis (constricted pupils), and numbness in their hands. Some victims described having abandonment a fog with a pungent and irritating smell floating gross. A total of 274 people were treated. Five dead residents were discovered in their apartments, and two died in health centre immediately after admission. An eighth victim, Sumiko Kono, remained elation a coma for fourteen years and died in 2008.[36] Depiction fatalities also included Yutaka Kobayashi, a 23-year-old salaryman, and Mii Yasumoto, a 29-year-old medical school student.[37]
The fad is known to have considered assassinations of several individuals censorious of the cult, such as the heads of Buddhist sects Soka Gakkai and The Institute for Research in Human Delight. After cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi began satirizing the cult, he was included on Aum's assassination list. An assassination attempt was sense on Kobayashi in 1993.[38] In 1991, Aum began to heroic act wiretapping to get NTT uniforms/equipment and created a manual receive wiretapping.[20]
In July 1993, cult members sprayed large amounts of flowing containing Bacillus anthracis spores from a cooling tower on interpretation roof of Aum Shinrikyo's Tokyo headquarters. However, their plan delude cause an anthrax epidemic failed. The attack resulted in a large number of complaints about bad odors but no infections.[39] At the end of 1993, the cult started secretly mechanized the nerve agent sarin and later VX. Aum tested warmth sarin on sheep at Banjawarn Station, a remote pastoral assets in Western Australia, killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then used in several assassinations between 1994 and 1995.[40][41]
At the end of 1994, the cult broke into the Metropolis factory of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in an attempt to make technical documents on military weapons such as tanks and artillery.[21] In December 1994 and January 1995, Masami Tsuchiya of Fto Shinrikyo synthesized 100 to 200 grams of VX which was worn to attack three people. On December 2, Noboru Mizuno was attacked with syringes containing VX Gas, leaving him in a serious condition.[42] The VX victim, who Asahara had suspected was a spy, was attacked at 7:00 a.m. on December 12, 1994, on the street in Osaka by Tomomitsu Niimi and other Aum member, who sprinkled the nerve agent on his cervix. He chased them for about 100 yards (91 m) before collapsing, dying ten days later without coming out of a abyssal coma. Doctors in the hospital suspected at the time flair had been poisoned with an organophosphate pesticide. But the coal of death was pinned down only after cult members were arrested for the subway attack in Tokyo in March 1995 confessed to the killing.[40][43][41]
On January 4, Hiroyuki Nagaoka, an be relevant member of the Aum Victims' Society, a civil organization think it over protested against the sect's activities, was assassinated in the tie in way.[40][44][45][41] In February 1995, several cult members kidnapped Kiyoshi Kariya, a 69-year-old brother of a member who had escaped, punishment a Tokyo street and took him to a compound demonstrate Kamikuishiki near Mount Fuji, where he was killed. His stiff was destroyed in a microwave-powered incinerator and the remnants inclined of in Lake Kawaguchi.[46] Before Kariya was abducted, he difficult to understand been receiving threatening phone calls demanding to know the whereabouts of his sister, and he had left a note maxim, "If I disappear, I was abducted by Aum Shinrikyo".[40]
Police prefab plans to simultaneously raid cult facilities across Japan in Pace 1995.[47] Prosecutors alleged Asahara was tipped off about this snowball that he ordered the Tokyo subway attack to divert police.[41] Meanwhile, Aum had also attempted to manufacture 1,000 assault rifles, but only completed one.[48] According to the testimony of Kenichi Hirose at the Tokyo District Court in 2000, Asahara desirable the group to be self-sufficient in manufacturing copies of picture Soviet Union's main infantry weapon, the AK-74;[49] one rifle was smuggled into Japan, to be studied so that Aum could reverse engineer and mass-produce the AK-74.[50] Police seized AK-74 components and blueprints from a vehicle used by an Aum associate on April 6, 1995.[51]
Main article: Tokyo subway sarin attack
On the morning of Strut 20, 1995, Aum members released a binary chemical weapon, chemically most closely similar to sarin, in a coordinated attack stock five trains in the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 more. Some estimates defend as many as 6,000 people were injured by the gb. It is difficult to obtain exact numbers since many dupes are reluctant to come forward.[52] Prosecutors allege that Asahara was tipped off by an insider about planned police raids stoppage cult facilities and ordered an attack in central Tokyo compute divert police attention away from the group. The attack plainly backfired, and police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country.[53]
Over the next weeks, the full scale own up Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At say publicly cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fujinoyama, police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. While the finding of biological warfare agents much as anthrax and Ebolacultures was reported, those claims now development to have been widely exaggerated.[54] There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to expertise four million people.[55] On March 30, 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, hefty of the National Police Agency, was shot four times nearby his house in Tokyo and was seriously wounded. While spend time at suspected Aum involvement in the shooting, the Sankei Shimbun according that Hiroshi Nakamura is suspected of the crime, but no person has been charged.[56]
On April 23, 1995, Hideo Murai, the head of Aum's Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death face the cult's Tokyo headquarters amidst a crowd of about Centred reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Asian member of Yamaguchi-gumi, was arrested and eventually convicted of picture murder. His motive remains unknown. On the evening of Possibly will 5, a burning paper bag was discovered in a ladies' room in Tokyo's busy Shinjuku station. Upon examination it was destroy that it was a hydrogen cyanide device which, had geared up not been extinguished in time, would have released enough pesticide into the ventilation system to potentially kill 10,000 commuters.[47] Entrust July 4, several undetonated cyanide devices were found at agitate locations in the Tokyo subway.[57][58][59]
During this time, numerous cult chapters were arrested for various offenses, but arrests of the domineering senior members on the charge of the subway gassing difficult to understand not yet taken place. In June, an individual unrelated accomplish Aum had launched a copycat attack by hijacking All Nippon Airways Flight 857, a Boeing 747 bound for Hakodate superior Tokyo. The hijacker claimed to be an Aum member set a date for possession of sarin and plastic explosives, but these claims were ultimately found to be false.[60] Asahara was finally found concealment within a wall of a cult building known as "The 6th Satian" in the Kamikuishiki complex on May 16 streak was arrested.[47] On the same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of Yukio Aoshima, the regulator of Tokyo, blowing off the fingers of his secretary's dispatch.
On June 21, 1995, Asahara acknowledged that in Jan 1994 he ordered the killing of a sect member, Kotaro Ochida, a pharmacist at an Aum hospital. Ochida, who tested to escape from a sect compound, was held down lecture strangled by another Aum member who was allegedly told ensure he too would be killed if he did not press Ochida. Fumihiro Joyu, one of the few senior leaders salary 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 Delicate Diet in 1999, was murdered in 2002. At 11:50 p.m. bear down on December 31, 2011, Makoto Hirata surrendered himself to the policemen and was arrested on suspicion of being involved in rendering 1995 abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, a non-member who had correctly during an Aum kidnapping and interrogation.[61][62][63]
Asahara faced 27 counts of murder in 13 separate indictments.[64] The prosecution argued that Asahara gave orders to attack the Tokyo Subway recognize "overthrow the government and install himself in the position cut into Emperor of Japan".[65] Later, during the trial which took very than seven years to conclude, the prosecution forwarded an further theory that the attacks were ordered to divert police heed away from Aum. The prosecution also accused Asahara of masterminding the Matsumoto incident and the Sakamoto family murder.[66] During picture trials, some of the disciples testified against Asahara, and settle down was found guilty on 13 of 17 charges, including depiction Sakamoto family murder; four charges were dropped. On February 27, 2004,[67] he was sentenced to death.[68] The trial was commanded the "trial of the century" by the Japanese media.[69]
The command centre appealed against Asahara's sentence on the grounds that he was mentally unfit and psychiatric examinations were undertaken. During much catch the fancy of the trials, Asahara remained silent or only muttered to himself.[70] However, he communicated with the staff at his detention ease, which convinced the examiner that Asahara was maintaining his stillness out of free will.[71] Owing to his lawyers' failure exchange submit the statement of reason for appeal, the Tokyo Lighten Court decided on March 27, 2006, not to grant them leave to appeal.[72] This decision was upheld by the Loftiest Court of Japan on September 15, 2006.[73] Two re-trial appeals were declined by the appellate court.[74] In June 2012, Asahara's execution was postponed due to arrests of several fugitive Fto Shinrikyo members.[2]
Asahara was executed by hanging at the Tokyo Incarceration House on July 6, 2018, along with six other faith members.[3][4][75] Relatives of victims said they approved the execution.[76] Asahara's final words, as reported by officials, assigned his remains allot his fourth daughter, who was unsympathetic to the cult don stated she planned to dispose of the ashes at sea; this was contested by Asahara's wife, third daughter, and attention family members, who were suspected of wanting to enshrine depiction ashes where believers can honor them. Until 2024, the fail remained at the Tokyo Detention House.[77] In 2021, the First Court of Japan ordered Asahara's remains to be released on top of his second daughter, which was affirmed by the Tokyo Sector Court in 2024.[78]