Tokyo subway killer’s execution puts police on high alert over possible retaliatory action
Japan was on alert yesterday amid fears that the executions of the former leader and members of a doomsday cult behind the deadly Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995 could spark acts of retaliation by supporters or new groups.
Japan on Friday hanged Shoko Asahara and six other members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which killed 13 people in an attack that shattered the country’s myth of public safety.
Police and the Public Security Intelligence Agency were collecting intelligence and monitoring followers of Asahara, Kyodo news agency said, citing warnings by a senior police official that Aum followers remained active.
The security agency said it searched 16 premises belonging to three groups in Japan on Friday, including those of the cult’s formal successor and a splinter organisation launched by a former Aum spokesman.
Asahara, 63, was sentenced to hang in 2004 on 13 charges, including the subway gas attacks and others crimes in which at least a dozen people were killed. He pleaded not guilty and never testified. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2006.
In all, 13 cult members were sentenced to death in more than 20 years of trials, which came to an end in January.
Friday’s executions prompted domestic media to examine how Aum was able to recruit its followers – many of whom were young and highly educated – and whether its offshoots or other newly formed groups could do the same.
The Nikkei business daily said in an editorial that the influence of Aum remained and that cults were still looking to recruit young people.
“From street corners, universities and the world of the internet, cult-like groups that target young people have not disappeared,” it said. “The conditions for young people to fall into the darkness of Aum – isolation, dissatisfaction with the state, and dissemination of extreme ideas – are actually becoming stronger.”
Others questioned the ability of cults or similar groups to recruit followers on the scale achieved by Aum, let alone reach the level of organisation and equipment needed to stage major attacks.
Aum, which mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings, had at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas at its peak.
Hirohito Suzuki, a professor of sociology at the Graduate School of Project Design in Tokyo, said a combination of greater surveillance of Aum’s offshoots and greater societal awareness meant it was now difficult for groups to obtain weapons or carry out military-style training.