JAPAN-SARIN ATTACK/FILE File footage showing aftermath of the Tokyo Subway sarin gas attack nearly 20 years ago

Record ID: 355248

  • Title: JAPAN-SARIN ATTACK/FILE File footage showing aftermath of the Tokyo Subway sarin gas attack nearly 20 years ago
  • Date: 20th March 2015
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE - MARCH 20, 1995) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** JAPAN SELF DEFENSE FORCE (JSDF) UNIT ARRIVING AT THE SITE OF SARIN INCIDENT WITH EQUIPMENT JSDF UNIT CLIMBING DOWN STAIRS TO SUBWAY
  • Embargoed: 4th April 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA7XN28HSX107SHJQP0WEWJ7RTI
  • Story Text: On Friday (March 20) Japan will commemorate 20 years passing since the attack on the sarin poison gas on the Tokyo subway system which killed 12 and sickened thousands.
    The gassing, with its images of bodies lying across platforms and soldiers in gas masks sealing off Tokyo subway stations, stunned the Japanese public, accustomed to crime-free streets.
    The cult's arsenal including the nerve gas sarin, first developed by the Nazis, raised concern worldwide about the ease of making biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.
    The cult was set up in 1987 by its leader Shoko Asahara -- who's real name is Chizuo Matsumoto. It mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings to attract, at its peak, at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, among them graduates of some of the nation's elite universities.
    The pudgy, nearly blind guru, who was later sentenced to death in 2004, predicted that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland.
    He also claimed to have travelled forward in time to 2006 and talked to people then about what World War Three had been like.
    Asahara and other cult members ran for parliament in 1990 but won only a smattering of votes.
    After the elections, Aum set up a huge commune-like complex at the foot of Mount Fuji, where members not only studied his mystical teachings and practised bizarre rituals but built an arsenal of weapons including the sarin used in the subway attack.
    Lawyers for Asahara filed for an appeal that began a legal process that could take years more to complete.
    Aum, which in 1999 admitted involvement in the subway gassing, changed its name in 2000 to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its leaders say it poses no threat now but the Japanese authorities disagree and keep its membership of about 1,600 under surveillance.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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