Shoko asahara biography of william

Founder of Aum Shinrikyo (1955–2018)

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 goodness founder and leader of the Nipponese doomsday cult known as Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding depiction 1995 sarin gas attack on say publicly Tokyo subway, and was also complex in several other crimes. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004, put forward his final appeal failed in 2011. In June 2012, his execution was postponed due to further arrests advice Aum members.^[2] He was ultimately done along with other senior members show signs of Aum Shinrikyo on July 6, 2018.^[3][4]

Early life

Chizuo Matsumoto was born on Go on foot 2, 1955, the fourth son notice a large, poor family of tatami-mat-makers in Kumamoto Prefecture.^[5][6] He had babies glaucoma from birth, which made him lose all sight in his compare eye and go partially blind herbaceous border his right eye at a ant age, and was thus enrolled make a way into a school for the blind in the way that he was 6-years-old due to glance unable to follow on the parentage trade; he never lived with monarch family again.^[6]

Matsumoto discovered a way go to see earn money by directing other issue to a candy store, and on account of he was the only student get the school still capable of receipt some vision, this led to him becoming somewhat well-liked. However, Matsumoto was also known to be a martinet at the school, taking advantage firm footing the other students by beating them and extorting money from them. By his adolescence, Matsumoto developed a pretence about ruling a kingdom of robots with total power and confided check his schoolmates about his aspiration inhibit rule Japan as Prime Minister.^[7]

He progressive in 1973 and applied to discover politics at Tokyo University, but was rejected. He then turned to high-mindedness study of acupuncture and traditional Asian medicine, which were common careers defend the blind in Japan, and subside established a Chinese medicine shop hard to find Tokyo.^[8] Asahara married the following class and eventually fathered six children, high-mindedness eldest of whom was born dainty 1978.^[9] In 1981, Matsumoto was criminal of practicing pharmacy without a empower and selling unregulated drugs, for which he was fined ¥200,000 (equivalent be introduced to about ¥270,000 in 2023).^[10]

Matsumoto's interest be sure about religion reportedly started at this at this point. Having been recently married, he seized to support his large and ontogenesis family.^[11] He dedicated his free at the double to the study of various unworldly concepts, starting with Chinese astrology last Taoism.^[12] Later, Asahara practiced Western esotericism, yoga, meditation, esoteric Buddhism, and unsounded abstruse Christianity.^[13] Matsumoto let his hair crucial beard grow and adopted the designation Shoko Asahara.

Starting in 1984, Asahara made several pilgrimages to India, hoop he met Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Asahara later claimed abrupt his followers that he managed far achieve Enlightenment, met Shiva, and was given a "special mission" to harangue "real Buddhism" in Japan. The Dalai Lama later distanced himself from Asahara and said that he had trip over "a strange Japanese man", but denied having any significant relationship with him. Asahara returned permanently to Japan export 1987 and assumed the title sonshi meaning "guru" before stating that unquestionable had mastered meditation to such let down extent that he could lift herself with his mind. He promoted that achievement with pamphlets produced by authority own publishing company, but outside trig few Japanese periodicals with an secret subject, little publicity was achieved.^[14]

Aum Shinrikyo

Main article: Aum Shinrikyo

Establishment

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 in Tokyo's Shibuya ward rip open 1987, starting off as a yoga and meditation class^[15] known as Oumu Shinsen no Kai (オウム神仙の会, "Aum Eternal Mountain Wizard Association") and steadily grew in the following years. It gained official status as a religious logic in 1989 and attracted a massive number of graduates from Japan's whole universities, thus being dubbed a "religion for the elite".^[16]

Early activities

Although Aum was considered controversial in Japan, it was not initially associated with serious crimes until Asahara became obsessed with Scriptural prophecies. Aum's public relations activities star publishing comics and animated cartoons give it some thought attempted to tie its religious burden to popular anime and manga themes, including space missions, powerful weapons, nature conspiracies, and the quest for radical truth.^[17] Aum published several magazines plus Vajrayana Sacca and Enjoy Happiness, adopting a somewhat missionary attitude.^[16]Isaac Asimov's body of knowledge fiction Foundation Trilogy was referenced "depicting as it does an elite power of spiritually evolved scientists forced authorization go underground during an age tinge barbarism so as to prepare personally for the they will emerge picture rebuild civilization".^[18] It has been posited that Aum's publications used Christian give orders to Buddhist ideas to impress what type considered to be the more clever and educated Japanese who were note attracted to boring, purely traditional sermons.^[19]: 258

Advertising and recruitment activities, dubbed the "Aum Salvation plan", included claims of boon physical illnesses with health improvement techniques, realizing life goals by improving intellect and positive thinking, and concentrating swag what was important at the charge of leisure. This was to break down accomplished by practicing ancient teachings, dead on translated from original Palisutras. These efforts resulted in Aum being able designate recruit a variety of people thorough from bureaucrats to personnel from representation Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the Edo Metropolitan Police.^[20] Authors David Kaplan person in charge Andrew Marshall, in their 1996 picture perfect, The Cult at the End quite a lot of the World, claim that initiation rituals often involved the use of hallucinogens, such as LSD. Religious practices many times involved extremely ascetic practices claimed acquiescence be "yoga". These included everything use up renunciants being hung upside down support being given shock therapy.^[21]

The cult under way attracting controversy in the late-1980s opposed to accusations of deception of recruits, tenancy cult members against their will, forcing members to donate money and carnage a cult member who tried take in leave in February 1989.^[22][23] Kaplan be proof against Marshall alleged in their book rove Aum was also connected with much activities as extortion. The group, authors report, "commonly took patients into tog up hospitals and then forced them count up pay exorbitant medical bills".^[21]

Sakamoto family murder

Main article: Sakamoto family murder

In October 1989, Tokyo Broadcasting System Television (TBS) tie an interview with 33-year-old Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer working on a mammoth action lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo, concerning his anti-Aum efforts. However, the fabric secretly showed a video of rank interview to Aum members without Sakamoto's knowledge, intentionally breaking its protection break into sources. Aum officials then pressured TBS to cancel the planned broadcast robust the interview.^[24][25] Several days later, ambiguity November 3, 1989, several Aum Shinrikyo members, including Hideo Murai, chief individual, Satoro Hashimoto, a martial arts head, Tomomasa Nakagawa and Kazuaki Okazaki flock to Yokohama, where Sakamoto lived. They carried a pouch with fourteen subcutaneous needles and a supply of k chloride. According to court testimony incomplete by the perpetrators later, they designed to use the chemical substance sort out kidnap Sakamoto from Yokohama's Shinkansen locked station, but, contrary to expectations, grace did not show up—it was neat holiday (Bunka no hi, or "Culture Day"), so he slept in congregate his family at home.^[26][27]

At 3 a.m. on November 5, the group entered Sakamoto's apartment through an unlocked entryway. Tsutsumi Sakamoto was struck on magnanimity head with a hammer, injected expound potassium chloride, and strangled.^[28] His 29-year-old wife, Satoko Sakamoto (坂本都子 Sakamoto Satoko) was beaten and injected with k chloride.^[29] Their 14-month-old infant son Tatsuhiko Sakamoto (坂本竜彦 Sakamoto Tatsuhiko) was injected with the potassium chloride and confirmation his face was covered with clean up cloth. The family's remains were positioned in metal drums and hidden nervous tension three separate rural areas in threesome different prefectures (Tsutsumi in Niigata, Satoko in Toyama, and Tatsuhiko in Nagano) so that in case the kith were uncovered, police might not inch the three incidents. Their bed bed linens were burned and the tools were dropped in the ocean. The victims' teeth were smashed to prevent identification.^[30] Their bodies were not found up in the air the perpetrators revealed the locations afterwards they were captured in connection confront the 1995 Tokyo subway attack. Overtake the time police searched the areas in which the victims were set, their bodies were reduced to bones.^[31]TBS kept the showing of the recording secret until March 25, 1996. That led to strong criticism that expansion contributed to the murder.^[32]

Matsumoto sarin attack

Main article: Matsumoto sarin attack

On the falsified of June 27, 1994, the clique carried out a chemical weapons unimpressive against civilians when they released gb in the central Japanese city a selection of Matsumoto, Nagano. When carrying out representation attack, Aum Shinrikyo had two goals; to attack three judges who were expected to rule against the religion in a lawsuit concerning a bullying estate dispute, and to test integrity efficacy of its sarin—which the arduous was manufacturing at one of tight facilities—as a weapon of mass murder.^[33][34] Residents of Matsumoto had also aggravated Asahara by vigorously opposing his course to set up an office allow factory in the city's southern substitute. Opponents of the plan gathered 140,000 signatures on an anti-Aum petition, monetary worth to 70 percent of Matsumoto's natives at the time.^[35]

Aum's original plan take on release the aerosol into the Matsumoto courthouse was altered when the hard members arrived in the city later the courthouse had closed. They undeniable to instead target a three-story accommodation building where the city's judges resided. At 10:40 pm, members of Aum old a converted refrigerator truck to help a cloud of sarin which floated near the home of the book. The truck's cargo space held "a heating contraption that had been viz designed to turn" twelve litres be incumbent on liquid sarin into an aerosol, submit fans to diffuse the aerosol space the neighbourhood.^[35]

At 11:30 pm, Matsumoto police established an urgent report from paramedics lapse casualties were being transported to sickbay. The patients were suffering from overcast vision, eye pain, headaches, nausea, symptom, miosis (constricted pupils), and numbness pavement their hands. Some victims described obtaining seen a fog with a clearcut and irritating smell floating by. Spick total of 274 people were aerated. Five dead residents were discovered constant worry their apartments, and two died cut down hospital immediately after admission. An ordinal victim, Sumiko Kono, remained in fine coma for fourteen years and labour in 2008.^[36] The fatalities also be a factor Yutaka Kobayashi, a 23-year-old salaryman, humbling Mii Yasumoto, a 29-year-old medical institute student.^[37]

Additional incidents before 1995

The cult assignment known to have considered assassinations refreshing several individuals critical of the body, such as the heads of Buddhistic sects Soka Gakkai and The Faculty for Research in Human Happiness. Afterwards cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi began satirizing significance cult, he was included on Aum's assassination list. An assassination attempt was made on Kobayashi in 1993.^[38] Addition 1991, Aum began to use wiretapping to get NTT uniforms/equipment and conceived a manual for wiretapping.^[20]

In July 1993, cult members sprayed large amounts loosen liquid containing Bacillus anthracis spores let alone a cooling tower on the turf of Aum Shinrikyo's Tokyo headquarters. But, their plan to cause an bacilli epidemic failed. The attack resulted problem a large number of complaints increase in value bad odors but no infections.^[39] Attractive the end of 1993, the party started secretly manufacturing the nerve representative sarin and later VX. Aum proven its sarin on sheep at Banjawarn Station, a remote pastoral property worry Western Australia, killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then old in several assassinations between 1994 become more intense 1995.^[40][41]

At the end of 1994, say publicly cult broke into the Hiroshima second class of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in conclusion attempt to steal technical documents classical military weapons such as tanks lecturer artillery.^[21] In December 1994 and Jan 1995, Masami Tsuchiya of Aum Shinrikyo synthesized 100 to 200 grams of VX which was used to attack two people. On December 2, Noboru Mizuno was attacked with syringes containing VX Gas, leaving him in a earnest 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 Port by Tomomitsu Niimi and another Fto member, who sprinkled the nerve intermediary on his neck. He chased them for about 100 yards (91 m) in the past collapsing, dying ten days later in need coming out of a deep poser. Doctors in the hospital suspected combination the time he had been poisoned with an organophosphate pesticide. But goodness cause of death was pinned disaster only after cult members were interrupt for the subway attack in Yeddo in March 1995 confessed to representation killing.^[40][43][41]

On January 4, Hiroyuki Nagaoka, protract important member of the Aum Victims' Society, a civil organization that protested against the sect's activities, was assassinated in the same way.^{[40][44][45][41]} In Feb 1995, several cult members kidnapped Kiyoshi Kariya, a 69-year-old brother of a-ok member who had escaped, from a-okay Tokyo street and took him pull out a compound in Kamikuishiki near Climb Fuji, where he was killed. King corpse was destroyed in a microwave-powered incinerator and the remnants disposed go together with in Lake Kawaguchi.^[46] Before Kariya was abducted, he had been receiving precarious phone calls demanding to know nobleness whereabouts of his sister, and filth had left a note saying, "If I disappear, I was abducted invitation Aum Shinrikyo".^[40]

Police made plans to promptly raid cult facilities across Japan blessed March 1995.^[47] Prosecutors alleged Asahara was tipped off about this and become absent-minded he ordered the Tokyo subway offensive to divert police.^[41] Meanwhile, Aum difficult to understand also attempted to manufacture 1,000 ract rifles, but only completed one.^[48] According to the testimony of Kenichi Hirose at the Tokyo District Court confine 2000, Asahara wanted the group work stoppage be self-sufficient in manufacturing copies do paperwork the Soviet Union's main infantry bat, the AK-74;^[49] one rifle was bootleg into Japan, to be studied and that Aum could reverse engineer focus on mass-produce the AK-74.^[50] Police seized AK-74 components and blueprints from a conduit used by an Aum member contend April 6, 1995.^[51]

Tokyo subway gas stabbing, arrests, and further incidents

Main article: Edo subway sarin attack

On the morning unconscious March 20, 1995, Aum members unconfined a binary chemical weapon, most tight chemically similar to sarin, in well-organized coordinated attack on five trains acquit yourself the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and heartbreaking 980 more. Some estimates claim type many as 6,000 people were ache by the sarin. It is strenuous to obtain exact numbers since visit victims are reluctant to come forward.^[52] Prosecutors allege that Asahara was atilt off by an insider about prepared police raids on cult facilities point of view ordered an attack in central Yedo to divert police attention away get round the group. The attack evidently backfired, and police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country.^[53]

Over the next week, the full index of Aum's activities was revealed lease the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the key of Mount Fuji, police found armaments, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. While the decision of biological warfare agents such reorganization anthrax and Ebolacultures was reported, those claims now appear to have bent widely exaggerated.^[54] There were stockpiles dispense chemicals that could be used be attracted to producing enough sarin to kill connect million people.^[55] On March 30, 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the Practice Police Agency, was shot four era near his house in Tokyo swallow was seriously wounded. While many implicated Aum involvement in the shooting, ethics Sankei Shimbun reported that Hiroshi Nakamura is suspected of the crime, on the other hand nobody has been charged.^[56]

On April 23, 1995, Hideo Murai, the head oust Aum's Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death outside the cult's Edo headquarters amidst a crowd of pressure 100 reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Korean fellow of Yamaguchi-gumi, was arrested and sooner or later convicted of the murder. His incentive remains unknown. On the evening accomplish May 5, a burning paper shoulder bag was discovered in a toilet hassle Tokyo's busy Shinjuku station. Upon question it was revealed that it was a hydrogen cyanide device which, confidential it not been extinguished in frustrate, would have released enough gas get tangled the ventilation system to potentially education 10,000 commuters.^[47] On July 4, a handful undetonated cyanide devices were found go off other locations in the Tokyo subway.^[57][58][59]

During this time, numerous cult members were arrested for various offenses, but arrests of the most senior members desire the charge of the subway gassing had not yet taken place. Restrict June, an individual unrelated to Fto had launched a copycat attack soak hijacking All Nippon Airways Flight 857, a Boeing 747 bound for Hakodate from Tokyo. The hijacker claimed defile be an Aum member in period of office of sarin and plastic explosives, nevertheless these claims were ultimately found adjacent to be false.^[60] Asahara was finally wind up hiding within a wall of nifty cult building known as "The Ordinal Satian" in the Kamikuishiki complex wreck May 16 and was arrested.^[47] Report the same day, the cult armoured a parcel bomb to the control centre of Yukio Aoshima, the governor aristocratic Tokyo, blowing off the fingers pointer his secretary's hand.

After 1995

On June 21, 1995, Asahara acknowledged that pride January 1994 he ordered the bloodshed of a sect member, Kotaro Ochida, a pharmacist at an Aum polyclinic. Ochida, who tried to escape shun a sect compound, was held downcast and strangled by another Aum associate who was allegedly told that inaccuracy too would be killed if significant did not strangle Ochida. Fumihiro Joyu, one of the few senior privileged of the group under Asahara who did not face serious charges, became official head of the organization gather 1999. Kōki Ishii, a legislator who formed an anti-Aum committee in influence National Diet in 1999, was murdered in 2002. At 11:50 p.m. on Dec 31, 2011, Makoto Hirata surrendered being to the police and was forestall on suspicion of being involved worry the 1995 abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, a non-member who had died beside an Aum kidnapping and interrogation.^[61][62][63]

Trial stand for execution

Asahara faced 27 counts of patricide in 13 separate indictments.^[64] The pursuance argued that Asahara gave orders make attack the Tokyo Subway to "overthrow the government and install himself play in the position of Emperor of Japan".^[65] Later, during the trial which took more than seven years to end, the prosecution forwarded an additional belief that the attacks were ordered in detail divert police attention away from Fto. The prosecution also accused Asahara work masterminding the Matsumoto incident and decency Sakamoto family murder.^[66] During the trials, some of the disciples testified anti Asahara, and he was found guiltless on 13 of 17 charges, counting the Sakamoto family murder; four impost were dropped. On February 27, 2004,^[67] he was sentenced to death.^[68] Dignity trial was called the "trial catch the century" by the Japanese media.^[69]

The defence appealed against Asahara's sentence arranged the grounds that he was intellectually unfit and psychiatric examinations were undertaken. During much of the trials, Asahara remained silent or only muttered inhibit himself.^[70] However, he communicated with righteousness staff at his detention facility, which convinced the examiner that Asahara was maintaining his silence out of on your own will.^[71] Owing to his lawyers' dissect to submit the statement of grounds for appeal, the Tokyo High Focus on decided on March 27, 2006, battle-cry to grant them leave to appeal.^[72] This decision was upheld by righteousness Supreme Court of Japan on Sep 15, 2006.^[73] Two re-trial appeals were declined by the appellate court.^[74] Of great magnitude June 2012, Asahara's execution was behind schedule due to arrests of several fugacious Aum Shinrikyo members.^[2]

Asahara was executed unwelcoming hanging at the Tokyo Detention Boarding house on July 6, 2018, along steadfast six other cult members.^[3][4][75] Relatives admire victims said they approved the execution.^[76] Asahara's final words, as reported wedge officials, assigned his remains to her majesty fourth daughter, who was unsympathetic close the cult and stated she proposed to dispose of the ashes split sea; this was contested by Asahara's wife, third daughter, and other kinsfolk members, who were suspected of lacking to enshrine the ashes where believers can honor them. Until 2024, depiction ashes remained at the Tokyo Restraint House.^[77] In 2021, the Supreme Deadly of Japan ordered Asahara's remains habitation be released to his second damsel, which was affirmed by the Edo District Court in 2024.^[78]

See also

References

Further reading

• Asahara, Shoko (1988). Supreme Initiation: An Empirical Spiritual Branch of knowledge for the Supreme Truth. AUM Army Inc. ISBN .—highlights the main stages allround Yogic and Buddhist practice, comparing Yoga-sutra system by Patanjali and the Multiple Noble Path from Buddhist tradition.
• Asahara, Shoko (1993). Life and Death. Shizuoka: Fto. ISBN .—focuses on the process of Kundalini-Yoga, one of the stages in Aum's practice.
• Beckford, James A. (1998). "A Virulent Cocktail? Aum Shinrikyo's Path to Violence". Nova Religio. 1 (2): 305–6. doi:10.1525/nr.1998.1.2.305.
• Berson, Tom (September 22, 1997). "Are Miracle Ready for Chemical Warfare?". News Area Communications.
• Brackett, D. W. (1996). Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo. Weatherhill. ISBN .
• Kiyoyasu, Kitabatake (September 1, 1995). "Aum Shinrikyo: Companionship Begets an Aberration". Japan Quarterly. 42 (4): 376. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
• Murakami, Haruki; Birnbaum, Alfred; Gabriel, Philip (2001). Underground (1st ed.). New York: Vintage Global. ISBN .