SECOND ATTEMPT
Throughout this time, Asahara’s scientists had been working on and correcting the previously failed production of clostridium botulinum. They believed that they now had the perfected poison. Shoko Asahara saw the forthcoming wedding of Japan’s Prince Naruhito as the perfect occasion to use it. This time, he personally was going to spread the poison. The truck was again loaded with its deadly cargo and on the day of the royal wedding, Asahara and his men sprayed the streets of central Tokyo. Once again, the poison failed, and the population of Tokyo, plus its despised leaders, remained unharmed.
A livid Asahara went back to his scientists who, by now, had realized that the clostridium botulinum they had produced was not going to work. Anthrax however, just might. Not fast-acting, but highly lethal, the poison takes a couple of days to work, during which time the body is subjected to fever, vomiting, boils, sores, eventual swelling of the brain, coma and death. Anthrax can be produced as either liquid or powder. Seiichi Endo, Aum’s chief scientist, chose liquid.
EXPERIMENTATION
The liquid was continually sprayed over the city from the top of an eight-storey building which Aum owned on the east side of Tokyo for several days. When local residents began to complain of an unusual smell in the neighbourhood, the police came to investigate and traced the source back to the building owned by Aum. On discovering to whom the building belonged, the police discontinued any further investigation, again reluctant to contravene the religious protection laws. Asahara explained the smell as an incense he had been using to cleanse the premises, and the police were happy to leave it at that. Aside from the smell, citizens noticed that their plants were wilting, their animals were not well, and that some of them suffered stomach upsets. No one died. Asahara’s scientists had used a veterinary vaccine strain, not fatal.
Frustrated, yet undeterred, Asahara ordered his team of scientists to travel the globe looking for an effective poison and more information on chemical and biological weapons.
Finally, the decision was taken to produce sarin, a deadly nerve toxin originally discovered by German scientists in 1936 but fortunately not successfully produced until the end of the war. In either liquid or gas form, one drop was fatal and it had a similarly gruesome effect as that of anthrax. Asahara could not wait to try out his new deadly weapon. The sarin was taken to Aum-owned land in Australia, where 29 sheep were subjected to the deadly gas. Each and every one died, their death-throes celebrated by a jubilant Asahara.
Choosing a human target on whom to trial the sarin proved no problem for Asahara. He had many enemies. His first attempt to spray the leader of a rival religious group, a threat to the Aum Supreme Truth, failed when the spraying machinery sprung a leak and almost killed one of Aum’s own men.
Asahara then chose to take revenge on three judges who had annulled Aum’s agreed purchase of a food-processing plant a few months previously. Again, the job was botched, but this time the end-result was nevertheless satisfactory to Asahara. The machinery on the vehicle which was positioned outside the residences of the three judges broke down and released a thick vapour cloud. The drivers of the vehicle had to stop their attack, as they could no longer see where they were going, and the gas was taken by the wind to a neighbouring residential area. Although not the intended target, seven people died and hundreds of casualties were treated in hospital.
Amazingly, yet again, Aum was cleared in the ensuing police investigations. Even more incredible due to the fact that police had received a warning that this had merely been a test by the Aum Supreme Truth, and that a gas attack in a confined area could prove even more tragic. The anonymous informant even quoted a crowded subway as an example.
AUM DESERTERS
Asahara had been so crazed and single-minded in his pursuit of the perfect poison, that he was failing to see the cracks appearing within the sect, and the opposition to it which was mounting outside. Disillusion within Aum soon came to his attention however, when he was told about the disappearance of a 62-year-old female member of the group. In spite of investing all of her savings and a large part of her life to Aum, she had become increasingly disturbed by the activities of Shoko Asahara. She had fled, and one attempt to bring her back had failed. When a second Aum official was sent out to retrieve her and failed, her brother was kidnapped and tortured in order to make him divulge information. Despite horrendous suffering, he never betrayed her, remaining loyal right up to the point he died. Furthermore, having already received threatening phone calls before he was kidnapped, he had had the foresight, perhaps out of fear, to leave a note behind which simply said that should he disappear, he had been taken by the Aum Supreme Truth. The police could turn a blind eye no longer and began making the arrangements for a massive raid of the Aum Supreme Truth compound, buildings and offices. Unfortunately, this decision had come just too late for the people of Tokyo.
MARCH 20, 1995
His megalomania now uncontrollable, Shoko Asahara was still clinging on to his earlier vision of the destruction of government buildings, an attack from both the ground and the air on a massive scale. The target that Aum eventually agreed on was not attacking the individuals that Asahara had originally wanted to punish, but was equally cataclysmic in scale.
The new target was Kasumigaseki station, on the Tokyo subway, the weapon was sarin, and the attack was scheduled for the morning rush hour, 8 a.m. on Monday March 20, 1995. Sealed bags of the poison were to be taken into the subway by five chosen Aum members, punctured, and then left to diffuse.
On the chosen morning at the appointed time, the perpetrators, who had their own antidote pills to the poison, all boarded separate trains bound for Kasumigaseki station. As the trains drew nearer they released the sarin and disembarked at the next stop.
The gas took effect instantly. Commuters on the deadly trains became nauseous. Some began to collapse, and others ran from the trains to the station exits, passing more sick and collapsed passengers as they went. Railway staff immediately contacted the emergency services and soon ambulances had arrived at the scene.
Five thousand five hundred people were injured by the Aum attack that fateful morning. Some will never recover fully from the damage that the sarin gas did, and some had a relatively lucky escape with only minor injuries. Twelve people in total died. Speculation abounded regarding the cause of the attack, but when experts examined the site after everyone had been evacuated, they confirmed that it was no gas leak, but rather an attack with the manufactured gas sarin.
AFTERMATH
An elated Shoko Asahara greeted the five executors of this evil when they returned to the compound. He paid them, praised them, and then told them to go into hiding. With the Tokyo public in shock and beseeching the authorities for answers to this tragedy, a massive impending police raid was planned. Although this was a secret operation, the plans were leaked to Asahara by Aum informers within the police, and the sect therefore began a huge clean-up operation of the compound and laboratories, hiding every trace of chemicals and any incriminating evidence or reports which could have linked them to the attack. Asahara and his followers took flight.
Aum’s attempts to conceal their activities were useless. The investigators found vast amounts of dangerous substances, chemicals which could be used to produce enough sarin to kill millions of people, and the equipment to make and distribute the deadly poison. They also unearthed torture chambers, millions of dollars, gold and drugs. Although some of the followers had remained at the compound, no arrests were made.