History for the day: 1995: Tokyo sarin attack

On 20 March 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, twelve people were killed and more than five thousand others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin leaked on five separate subway trains.

Tokyo subway workers (photo) commemorated the twenty-first anniversary of the Aum Shinrikyo cult’s deadly sarin nerve gas attack that killed thirteen people and injured over six thousand others in the capital by observing a moment of silence at Kasumigaseki Station and some relatives of victims laid flowers there to mourn those who fell in the terrorist attack on 20 March 1995. Two company employees were killed by the attack at the station.
“We shouldn’t forget the actions of those before us who acted to save people’s lives. We intend to continue doing our job to protect the safety of passengers,” area manager Mitsuaki Ota said. After offering flowers at the station, Shizue Takahashi, 69, whose husband Kazumasa, an assistant stationmaster, died in the attack, told reporters that even though twenty years have passed, visiting the station caused her to feel as if it happened just yesterday. “The sadness I felt that day is still with me.”
Among those who laid flowers at the station were Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and transport minister Keiichi Ishii. “We should never let the incident be forgotten. We will do our utmost to prevent terrorism,” Abe told reporters later.
The subway operator set up a stand at Kasumigaseki, Kodemmacho, and four other central Tokyo stations where lives were lost, to allow people to offer flowers.
In the attack, the deadly nerve agent was scattered in five train cars during the morning rush hour, causing mayhem at the stations, with many sickened passengers attended by emergency workers outside subway exits.
Death sentences have been finalized against ten members of the cult, including Chizuo Matsumoto, the sixty-year-old founder more commonly known as Shoko Asahara, in connection with the attack and other crimes, though none has yet to be carried out. Lifetime imprisonment has been finalized for four others.
Katsuya Takahashi, a former member who was captured in 2012 after seventeen years on the run, has appealed to a high court a district court ruling that sentenced him to life in prison for his involvement in the nerve gas attack.
Aum renamed itself Aleph in 2000. Along with the other successor group, Hikarinowa, or the Circle of Rainbow Light, Aleph remains under surveillance by public security authorities. According to the Public Security Intelligence Agency, there are still about sixteen hundred followers in Japan, and the group possesses about nine hundred million yen in assets.

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