The
Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred
to in the Japanese
media as the
, was an act of domestic
terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March
20, 1995.
In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released
sarin on several lines of the
Tokyo Metro, killing twelve people, severely
injuring fifty and causing temporary vision problems for nearly a
thousand others.
The attack was directed against trains
passing through Kasumigaseki
and Nagatachō
, home to the Japanese government. This was
and remains the most serious attack to occur in Japan since the end
of
World War II.
Background
Aum Shinrikyo is the former name of a
controversial group now known as
Aleph. The Japanese police initially
reported that the attack was the cult's way of hastening an
apocalypse. The prosecution said that it
was an attempt to bring down the government and install
Shoko Asahara, the group's founder, as the
"emperor" of Japan. The most recent theory proposes that the attack
was an attempt to divert attention from Aum when the group obtained
some information indicating that police searches were planned
(though, contrary to this plan, it ended up leading to mass
searches and arrests). Asahara's defense team claimed that certain
senior members of the group independently planned the attack, but
their motives for this are left unexplained.
Aum Shinrikyo first began their attacks on
June
27,
1994. With the help of a converted
refrigerator truck, members of the cult released a cloud of sarin
which floated near the homes of judges who were overseeing a
lawsuit concerning a real-estate dispute which was predicted to go
against the cult. From this one event, 500 people were injured and
seven people died.
Main perpetrators
Ten men were responsible for carrying out the attacks; five
released the sarin, while the other five served as get-away
drivers.
The teams were:
Ikuo Hayashi
Prior to joining Aum, Hayashi was a senior medical doctor with "an
active 'front-line' track record" at the
Ministry of Science
and Technology.
Himself the son of a doctor, Hayashi
graduated from Keio
University
, one of
Tokyo
's top schools. He was a heart and
artery specialist at Keio Hospital,
which he left to become head of Circulatory Medicine at the
National Sanatorium
Hospital in Tokai,
Ibaraki
(north of Tokyo). In 1990, he resigned his
job and left his family to join Aum in the monastic order Sangha,
where he became one of Asahara's favorites and was appointed the
group's Minister of Healing, as which he was responsible for
administering a variety of "treatments" to Aum members, including
sodium pentothal and
electric shocks to those whose loyalty
was suspect. These treatments resulted in several deaths. Hayashi
was later sentenced to
life
imprisonment.
Tomomitsu Niimi, who was his get-away driver, received the death
sentence.
Kenichi Hirose
Hirose was thirty years old at the time of the attacks.
Holder of
a postgraduate degree in Physics from prestigious Waseda
University
, Hirose
became an important member of the group's Chemical Brigade in their
Ministry of Science and Technology. He was also involved in
the group's Automatic Light Weapon Development scheme.
Hirose teamed up with Koichi Kitamura, who was his get-away driver.
After releasing the sarin, Hirose himself showed symptoms of sarin
poisoning. He was able to inject himself with the antidote
(
atropine sulphate) and was rushed to the
Aum-affiliated Shinrikyo Hospital in
Nakano
for treatment. However, medical personnel at the given hospital had
not been given prior notice of the attack and were consequently
clueless regarding what treatment Hirose needed. When Kitamura
faced the fact that he had driven Hirose to the hospital in vain,
he instead drove to Aum's headquarter in Shibuya where
Ikuo Hayashi gave Hirose first aid.
Hirose's
appeal of his death sentence was rejected by the Tokyo High
Court
on Wednesday, July 28,
2003. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of
Japan
on November 6, 2009.
Toru Toyoda
Toyoda was twenty-seven at the time of the attack.
He studied applied
physics at University
of Tokyo
's Science Department and graduated with
honors. He also holds a
master's
degree, and was about to begin
doctoral
studies when he joined Aum, where he belonged to the Chemical
Brigade in their Ministry of Science and Technology.
Toyoda was sentenced to death. The appeal of his death sentence was
rejected by the Tokyo High Court on Wednesday,
July 28,
2003, and was upheld by
the Supreme Court on November 6, 2009.
Katsuya Takahashi was his get-away driver.
Masato Yokoyama
Yokoyama was thirty-one at the time of the attack.
He was a graduate in
applied physics from Tokai University
's Engineering Department. He worked for an
electronics firm for three years after graduation before leaving to
join Aum, where he became Undersecretary at the group's Ministry of
Science and Technology. He was also involved in their Automatic
Light Weapons Manufacturing scheme. Yokoyama was
sentenced to death in 1999.
Kiyotaka Tonozaki, a high school graduate who joined the group in
1987, was a member of the group's Ministry of Construction, and
served as Yokoyama's getaway driver. Tonozaki was sentenced to life
in prison.
Yasuo Hayashi
Yasuo Hayashi was thirty-seven years old at the time of the
attacks, and was the oldest person at the group's Ministry of
Science and Technology.
He studied artificial intelligence at Kogakuin University; after graduation he
traveled to India
where he
studied yoga. He then became an Aum
member, taking vows in 1988 and rising to the number three position
in the group's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Asahara had at one time suspected Hayashi of being a spy. The extra
packet of sarin he carried was part of "ritual character test" set
up by Asahara to prove his allegiance, according to the
prosecution.
Hayashi went on the run after the attacks; he was arrested
twenty-one months later, one thousand miles from Tokyo on
Ishigaki Island. He was later sentenced to
death and has appealed.
Shigeo Sugimoto was his get-away driver. His lawyers argued that he
played only a minor role in the attack, but the argument was
rejected, and he has been sentenced to death.
The attack
On Monday
20 March 1995, five members of
Aum
Shinrikyo launched a chemical attack on the
Tokyo Metro, one of the world's busiest
commuter transport systems, at
the peak of the morning
rush hour. The
chemical agent used, liquid
sarin, was
contained in plastic bags which each team then wrapped in
newspaper. Each perpetrator carried two packets of sarin totaling
approximately 900 millilitres of sarin, except Yasuo Hayashi, who
carried three bags. Aum originally planned to spread the sarin as
an aerosol but did not follow through with it. A single drop of
sarin the size of a pinhead can kill an adult.
Carrying their packets of sarin and umbrellas with sharpened tips,
the perpetrators boarded their appointed trains. At prearranged
stations, the sarin packets were dropped and punctured several
times with the sharpened tip of the umbrellas. The men then got off
the train and exited the station to meet his accomplice with a car.
By leaving the punctured packets on the floor, the sarin was
allowed to leak out into the train car and stations. This sarin
affected passengers, subway workers, and those who came into
contact with them. Sarin's low vapor pressure (2.9mmHg) and high
boiling point makes it difficult to vaporize at ambient
temperature, so very little evaporated to become an inhalant
hazard. Sarin evaporates nearly 10 times more slowly than
water.
Chiyoda Line
The team of Ikuo Hayashi and Tomomitsu Niimi were assigned to drop
and puncture two sarin packets on the
Chiyoda Line. Hayashi was the
perpetrator and Niimi was his get-away driver. On the way to the
station, Niimi purchased newspapers to wrap the sarin packets
in—the
Japan Communist Party's
Akahata and the
Sōka Gakkai's
Seikyo Shimbun. Hayashi eventually chose
to use
Akahata. Wearing a
surgical mask commonly worn by the Japanese
during cold and flu season, Hayashi boarded the first car of
southwest-bound 07:48 Chiyoda Line train number A725K.
As the train
approached Shin-Ochanomizu Station
, the central business district in Chiyoda, he punctured one of his two bags of
sarin, leaving the other untouched and exited the train at
Shin-Ochanomizu.
The train
proceeded down the line with the punctured bag of sarin leaking
until 4 stops later at Kasumigaseki Station
. There, the bags were removed and eventually
disposed of by station attendants, of which two died. The train
continued on to the next station where it was completely stopped,
evacuated and cleaned. There were a total of 2 deaths and 231
serious injuries from this attack.
Marunouchi Line
Ogikubo-bound
Two men,
Kenichi Hirose and Koichi Kitamura, were assigned to release two
sarin packets on the westbound Marunouchi Line destined for
Ogikubo
Station
. The pair left Aum headquarters in Shibuya at 6:00 am and drove to Yotsuya
Station
. There Hirose boarded a westbound Marunouchi
Line train, then changed to a northbound JR East Saikyō Line train at Shinjuku
Station
and got off at Ikebukuro Station
. He then bought a sports tabloid to wrap the
sarin packets in and boarded the second car of Marunouchi Line
train A777.
As he was about to release the sarin, however, Hirose believed the
loud noises caused by the newspaper-wrapped packets had caught the
attention of a
schoolgirl.
To avoid further
suspicion, he got off the train at either Myogadani
or Korakuen Station
and moved to the third car instead of the
second. As the train approached Ochanomizu
Station
, Hirose dropped the packets to the floor, repeated
an Aum mantra and punctured the sarin packets with so much force
that he bent the tip of his sharpened umbrella. Both packets
were successfully broken, and all 900 mL of sarin was released
onto the floor of the train. Hirose then departed the train at
Ochanomizu and left via Kitamura's car waiting outside the
station.
At
Nakano-sakaue Station
, 14 stops later, two severely injured passengers
were carried out of the train car, while station attendant Sumio
Nishimura removed the sarin packets (one of these two passengers
would end up being the only fatality from this attack). The
train continued on, however, with sarin still on the floor of the
third car.
Five stops later, at 8:38 am, the train
reached Ogikubo
Station, the end of the Marunouchi Line, all the while passengers
boarding the train. The train continued eastbound until it was
finally taken out of service at Shin-Kōenji Station
two stops later. The entire ordeal resulted
in one passenger's death with 358 being seriously injured.
Ikebukuro-bound
Masato
Yokoyama and his driver Kiyotaka Tonozaki were assigned to release
sarin on the Ikebukuro-bound Marunouchi Line. On the way to
Shinjuku
Station, Tonozaki stopped to allow Yokoyama to buy a copy
of Nihon Keizai
Shimbun, the paper he would use to wrap the two sarin
packets. When they arrived at the station, Yokoyama put on a
wig and fake glasses and boarded the fifth car of the
Ikebukuro-bound 07:39 Marunouchi Line train number B801.
As the
train approached Yotsuya
Station, Yokoyama began poking at the sarin packets.
When the train reached the next station, he fled the scene with
Tonozaki, leaving the sarin packets on the train car. The packets,
however, were not fully punctured. During his drop, Yokoyama
accidentally left one packet fully intact, while the other packet
was only punctured once resulting in the sarin being released
relatively slowly.
The train reached the end of the line, Ikebukuro, at 8:30 am where
it would head back in the opposite direction. However, before it
departed the train was evacuated and searched, but the searchers
failed to discover the sarin packets. One passenger attributes this
oversight to the fact that the search was conducted by a part-time
employee instead of a full-time train assistant. Nevertheless, the
train departed Ikebukuro Station at 8:32 am as the Shinjuku-bound
A801.
Passengers soon became ill and alerted
station attendants of the sarin soaked newspapers at Kōrakuen
Station
. One station later, at Hongō-sanchōme
, staff removed the sarin packets and mopped the
floor, but the train continued on to Shinjuku. After
arriving at 9:09 am, the train once again began to make its way
back to Ikebukuro as the B901.
The train was finally put out of service at
Kokkai-gijidō-mae Station
in Chiyoda at 9:27 am, one hour and forty minutes
after Yokoyama punctured the sarin packet. The attack
resulted in no fatalities, but over 200 people were left in serious
condition.
Hibiya Line
Tōbu Dōbutsu Kōen-bound
Toru Toyoda and his driver Katsuya Takahashi were assigned to
release sarin on the northeast-bound
Hibiya Line. The pair, with
Takahashi driving, left Aum headquarters in Shibuya at 6:30 am.
After
purchasing a copy of Hochi
Shimbun and wrapping his two sarin packets, Toyoda arrived
at Naka-Meguro
Station
where he boarded the first car of northeast-bound
07:59 Hibiya Line train number B711T. Sitting close to the
door, he set the sarin packets on the floor.
When the train
arrived at the next station, Ebisu
, Toyoda punctured the packets and got off the
train. He was on the train for a total of two minutes, by
far the quickest sarin drop out of the five attacks that day.
Two stops
later, at Roppongi
Station
, passengers in the train's first car began to feel
the effects of the sarin and began to open the windows.
By
Kamiyacho
Station
, the next stop, the passengers in the car had begun
panicking. The first car was evacuated and several
passengers were immediately taken to a hospital.
Still, with the first
car empty the train continued down the line for one more stop until
it was completely evacuated at Kasumigaseki
Station. This attack killed one person and seriously
injured 532 others.
Naka-Meguro-bound
Yasuo
Hayashi and Shigeo Sugimoto were the team assigned to drop sarin on
the southwest-bound Hibiya Line departing Kita-Senju
Station
for Naka-Meguro Station. Unlike the rest of the attacks, Hayashi
carried three sarin packets onto the train instead of two. Prior to
the attack, Hayashi asked to carry a flawed leftover packet in
addition to the two others in an apparent bid to allay suspicions
and prove his loyalty to the group.
After Sugimoto escorted him to Ueno Station
, Hayashi boarded the third car of southwest-bound
07:43 Hibiya Line train number A720S and dropped his sarin packets
to the floor. Two stops later, at Akihabara
Station
, he punctured the packets, left the train and
arrived back at Aum headquarters with Sugimoto by 8:30 am.
Hayashi made the most punctures of any of the perpetrators.
By the next stop, passengers in the third car began to feel effects
from the sarin. Noticing the large, liquid soaked package on the
floor and assuming it was the culprit, one passenger kicked the
sarin packets out of the train and onto
Kodenmachō Station's subway
platform. Four people in the station died as a result.
A puddle of sarin, however, remained on the floor of the passenger
car as the train continued to the next station.
At 8:10 am, after the
train pulled out of Hatchōbori Station
, a passenger in the third car pressed the emergency
stop button. The train was in a tunnel at the time, and was
forced to proceed to
Tsukiji Station
where passengers stumbled out and collapsed on the station's
platform and the train was taken out of service.
The attack was originally believed to be an explosion and was thus
labeled as such in media reports. Eventually, station attendants
realized that the attack was not an explosion, but rather a
chemical attack. At 8:35 am, the Hibiya Line was completely shut
down and all commuters were evacuated. Between the five stations
affected in this attack, 8 people died and 275 were seriously
injured.
Aftermath
On the day of the attack, ambulances transported 688 patients and
nearly five thousand people reached hospitals by other means.
Hospitals saw 5,510 patients, seventeen of whom were deemed
critical, thirty-seven severe and 984 moderately ill with vision
problems. Most of those reporting to hospitals were the "worried
well," who had to be distinguished from those that were ill.
By mid-afternoon, the mildly affected victims had recovered from
vision problems and were released from hospital. Most of the
remaining patients were well enough to go home the following day,
and within a week only a few critical patients remained in
hospital. The death toll on the day of the attack was eight that
eventually rose to at least a dozen.
The injured
Witnesses have said that subway entrances resembled battlefields.
In many cases, the injured simply lay on the ground, many unable to
breathe. Several of those affected by sarin went to work in spite
of their symptoms, most of them not realizing that they had been
exposed to sarin. Most of the victims sought medical treatment as
the symptoms worsened and as they learned of the actual
circumstances of the attacks via news broadcasts.
Several of those affected were exposed to sarin only by helping
those who had been directly exposed. Among these were passengers on
other trains, subway workers and health care workers.
Recent surveys of the victims (in 1998 and 2001) show that many are
still suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder. In one
survey, twenty percent of 837 respondents complained that they feel
insecure whenever riding a train, while ten percent answered that
they try to avoid any nerve-attack related news. Over sixty percent
reported chronic eyestrain and said their vision has
worsened.
Emergency services
Emergency services including
police, fire and
ambulance services were
criticised for their handling of the attack and the injured, as
were the
media (some of whom, though
present at subway entrances and filming the injured, hesitated when
asked to transport victims to the hospital) and the Subway
Authority, which failed to halt several of the trains despite
reports of passenger injury. Health services including hospitals
and health staff were also criticised: one hospital refused to
admit a victim for almost an hour, and many hospitals turned
victims away.
Sarin poisoning was not well-known at the time, and many hospitals
only received information on diagnosis and treatment because a
professor at
Shinshu University's
school of medicine happened to see reports on television. Dr.
Nobuo Yanagisawa had had experience
with treating sarin poisoning after the
Matsumoto incident; he recognized the
symptoms, had information on diagnosis and treatment collected, and
led a team who sent the information to hospitals throughout Tokyo
via fax.
St. Luke' Hospital at Tsukiji was one of very few hospitals in
Tokyo at that time to have the entire building wired and piped for
conversion into a "Field Hospital" in the event of a major
disaster. This proved to be a very fortunate coincidence as the
hospital was able to take in most of the 600+ victims at Tsukiji
station, resulting in no fatalities at that station.
As there was a severe shortage of antidotes in Tokyo, sarin
antidote stored in rural hospitals as an antidote for
herbicide/insecticide poisoning were delivered to nearby
Shinkansen stations, where it was collected by a
Ministry of Health official on a train bound for Tokyo.
Defended by new religions scholars
In May 1995, after the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, American
scholars
James R. Lewis and
J.
Gordon Melton flew to Japan to hold
a pair of press conferences in which they announced that the chief
suspect in the murders, religious group
Aum Shinrikyo, couldn't have produced the
sarin that the attacks had been committed
with. They had determined this, Lewis said, from photos and
documents provided by the group.
However, the Japanese police had already discovered at Aum's main
compound back in March a sophisticated chemical weapons laboratory
that was capable of producing thousands of kilograms a year of the
poison. Later investigation showed that Aum not only created the
sarin used in the subway attacks, but had committed previous
chemical and biological weapons attacks, including a
previous attack with sarin that had
killed eight and injured 144.
During the
Aum Shinrikyo incident
Lewis and Melton's bills for travel, lodging and accommodations
were paid for by Aum, according to
The Washington Post. Lewis openly
disclosed that "Aum [...] arranged to provide all expenses [for the
trip] ahead of time", but claimed that this was "so that financial
considerations would not be attached to our final report".
Murakami book
Popular contemporary novelist
Haruki
Murakami wrote
Underground:
The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (1997). He
was critical of the Japanese media for focusing on the sensational
profiles of the attackers and ignoring the lives of the victimized
average citizens. The book contains extensive interviews with the
survivors in order to tell their stories. Murakami would later add
a second part to the work,
The Place That Was Promised,
which focuses on Aum Shinrikyo.
Aum/Aleph today
The sarin attack was the most serious terrorist attack in Japan's
modern history. It caused massive disruption and widespread fear in
a society that had previously been perceived as virtually free of
crime.
Shortly after the attack, Aum lost its status as a religious
organization, and many of its assets were seized. However, the
Diet (Japanese parliament) rejected a
request from government officials to outlaw the group. The
National Public Safety
Commission received increased funding to monitor the group. In
1999, the Diet gave the Commission broad powers to monitor and
curtail the activities of groups that have been involved in
"indiscriminate mass murder" and whose leaders are "holding strong
sway over their members", a bill custom-tailored to Aum
Shinrikyo.
About twenty of Aum's members, including its founder Asahara, are
either standing trial or have already been convicted for crimes
related to the attack. As of July 2004, eight Aum members have
received death sentences for their roles in the attack.
Asahara was
sentenced to death by
hanging on
February
27,
2004, but lawyers immediately appealed
the ruling. The Tokyo High Court postponed its decision on the
appeal until results were obtained from a court-ordered psychiatric
evaluation, which was issued to determine whether or not Asahara
was fit to stand trial. In February 2006, the court ruled that
Asahara was indeed fit to stand trial, and on
March 27, rejected the appeal against his death
sentence. Japan's Supreme Court upheld this decision on
September 15,
2006. (Japan
does not announce dates of executions, which are by hanging, in
advance of them being carried out.)
The group reportedly still has about 2,100 members, and continues
to recruit new members under the new name "Aleph". Though the group
has renounced its violent past, it still continues to follow
Asahara's spiritual teachings. Members operate several businesses,
though boycotts of known Aleph-related businesses, in addition to
searches, confiscations of possible evidence and picketing by
protest groups, have resulted in closures.
Aum/Aleph
remains on the US State Department
's list of
terrorist groups, but has not been linked to any further
terrorist acts, or any terrorist acts in the US. Aleph has
announced a change of its policies, apologized to victims of the
subway attack, and established a special compensation fund. Aum
members convicted in relation to the attack or other crimes are not
permitted to join the new organization, and are referred to as
"ex-members" by the group.
See also
References
Footnotes
- CDC website, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future
Threat?, Kyle B. Olson, Research Planning, Inc., Arlington,
Virginia
- Asahi.com Website, Death sentences upheld
for cultists
- Asahi.com Website, Death sentences upheld
for cultists
- [1]
- [2]
- CDC website, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future
Threat?, Kyle B. Olson, Research Planning, Inc., Arlington,
Virginia
- Apologetics Index, Aum Shinrikyo, Aum Supreme
Truth; Aum Shinri Kyo; Aleph, 2005
- CW Terrorism Tutorial, A Brief History of
Chemical Warfare, Historical Cases of CW Terrorism, Aum
Shinrikyo, 2004
- Matsumoto sarin victim dies 14 years after attack,
Yomiuri Shimbun (August 6, 2008).
- Tokyo Cult Finds an Unlikely Supporter,
The Washington Post, T.R. Reid, May
1995. "The Americans said the sect had invited them to visit after
they expressed concern to Aum's New York branch about religious
freedom in Japan. The said their airfare, hotel bills and 'basic
expenses' were paid by the cult"
- Japan's Waco: Aum Shinrikyo and the Eclipse of Freedom in
the Land of the Rising Sun, James R. Lewis, 1998
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