Suzuki, Miwa; Williams, David --- "Aum sect regroups three years after Tokyo subway gassing" [1998] AUFPPlatypus 17; (1998) 59 Platypus: Journal of the Australian Federal Police, Article 5

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Aum sect regroups three years after Tokyo Subway gassing

By Miwa Suzuki and David Williams

A Japanese ‘doomsday' sect, suspected of engineering a sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway in March, 1995, and which had links in Australia, continues to flourish according to reports from Japan.

Soon after the attack which killed 12 and injured more than 5,500 people, the AFP was involved in an investigation which revealed that almost two years earlier, nerve gas experiments were made on livestock at an isolated Western Australian sheep station the sect had owned.

The following article indicates that the sect uses the Internet to promote its message in three languages and operates a thriving computer sales network.

The report was taken from the Internet earlier this year.

Japan's Aum Supreme Truth sect is luring new disciples and fresh funds, three years after a deadly Sarin gas attack on Tokyo's rush-hour subways that shocked the world.

National security officials and cult watchers say 43-year-old Aum leader Shoko Asahara is drawing recruits to his doomsday cause even as he stands trial for masterminding the assault on March 20, 1995.

Mourners and surviving victims gather tomorrow [March 20] at central Tokyo subway stations to remember the day fanatics released the Nazi nerve agent, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.

But the horror lives on for the relatives of those drawn to the cult since the mass murder, and evidence that the sect is regrouping has left defectors and survivors with a new sense of dread.

"The suffering is not something from the past for people whose family members have been taken into the Aum sect," said Takeshi Ono, an attorney handling claims from cult victims.

"It is unbelievable that some people are still joining the sect... it's a mystery to me," he said. "The number of Aum followers is levelling off, not decreasing."

About 500 full-time members live in 15 cult bases across Japan, with many others active as part-time members, the Public Security Investigation Agency said in its latest report on the cult.

"The Aum Supreme Truth continues to be active, and should remain under close surveillance," the agency warned.

Sales at the sect's six computer outlets, five of them in Tokyo, are estimated to have totalled more than Y4 billion ($A47 million) last year, bringing at least Y400 million ($A4.68 million) in profit to the cult, it said.

Reika Matsumoto, a teenage daughter of guru Shoko Asahara, was now leading the sect in place of her father who is on trial in the Tokyo District Court for 17 charges including murder, the agency said.

And among some 400 Aum disciples arrested in crackdowns on the cult since 1995, a total of 155 had returned to the cult after being released, according to the agency.

Kenji Utsunomiya, an attorney who assists the gas attack survivors, said many were deeply worried that Aum was reviving and "hoping the state and municipal government will tighten supervision of the sect".

The Japanese government had provided inadequate aid to victims to the Sarin gassing and other random attacks, Utsunomiya said. "They need more mental and health care as well as financial aid."

The Aum sect escaped being outlawed in January last year when a legal panel ruled there was insufficient cause to believe it could still be a threat to society. It lost its religious group status.

It now has its own site on the Internet, available in Japanese, Russian and English.

Users can read latest news on the court trials, hymns such as ‘God's sexual love' and ‘The path to destruction through chains', read reminiscences of the ‘Master's' uncanny brilliance or check up on missions to Russia and elsewhere.

The detention centre where cult leader Shoko Asahara is confined during his trial has become a sacred place, drawing disciples to live nearby.

During his appearances at Tokyo District Court, Asahara drops off to sleep or mumbles incoherently.

But about 20 Aum followers regularly attend the sessions.

Mostly in their late teens and early 20s, the plainly-dressed disciples stare intently at their leader, read his books during recesses, and rarely talk to each other.

Some things, however, have changed for the cult.

Aum's main commune in the village of Kamikuishiki at the foot of Mt Fuji was given up when it fell into bankruptcy and the new attraction for the area is a theme park, ‘Fuji Gulliver's Kingdom'.

"Dark images of Aum may be fading here, but we will never forget what they did," said a park spokeswoman, adding that it had drawn 522,000 visitors since it was set up near the former commune in July last year.

"Visitors frequently ask us where the commune was because they want to see the place," she said.

A 45-metre model of Gulliver, Jonathan Swift's 18th Century literary creation, now lies on his back at the centre of the 30-hectare park with Mount Fuji in the background.