A member of the doomsday cult behind a deadly Tokyo subway gas attack and other crimes turned himself in to police after 17 years on the run, an official said yesterday.
A Tokyo metropolitan police official said Makoto Hirata, a member of Aum Shinrikyo, conspired with several other members in kidnapping a notary official in 1995 and causing his death. The victim, Kiyoshi Kariya, then 68, was the brother of a follower trying to quit the group.
Hirata, 46, who had been on the run since the summer of 1995, turned himself in at a Tokyo police station and was detained early yesterday, the police official said on condition of anonymity.
The cult also released sarin nerve gas in Tokyo’s subway system in 1995, killing 13 people and injuring more than 6,000 in Japan’s deadliest act of domestic terrorism.
The cult had amassed an arsenal of chemical, biological and conventional weapons in anticipation of an apocalyptic showdown with the government.
Police say Hirata and other cult members kidnapped Kariya off a Tokyo street and confined him at the group’s tightly guarded commune at the foot of Mount Fuji. They allegedly used anesthetics on Kariya to get him to talk about his sister, who escaped from the group after being pressed to donate her land. Kariya died from a drug overdose, police said.
According to court testimony, cult members burned Kariya’s body in an incinerator inside the commune and disposed of the ashes in a nearby lake to destroy the evidence.
Public broadcaster NHK said Hirata told police he wanted to “put the past behind him.”
He was carrying a travel pack containing minimal daily necessities and had Japanese currency worth several hundred US dollars in his wallet, it said.
Hirata told police he only drove Kariya to the cult compound and denied other allegations, NHK said.
Hirata was one of the last three wanted cult members. The two others are still on the run.
He is also suspected in the near-fatal shooting of Japan’s then-top police chief, but the high-profile case was closed last year after the statute of limitations expired.
Almost 200 members of the cult have been convicted in the gas attack and dozens of other crimes. Thirteen, including cult guru Shoko Asahara, are on death row. No one has been executed.
Hirata’s arrest could help fill in missing pieces of the cult investigation.
“As a member of the victim’s family, I just want to know the truth,” Kariya’s son Minoru said in a televised interview. “I hope the new witness will help bring new revelations.”
The cult, now renamed Aleph, once had 10,000 members in Japan and another 30,000 in Russia. It remains under police surveillance.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the