Chemical Plant at Sect Compound Reported : Japan: Officials think deadly gas sarin was made in cult’s laboratory near Mt. Fuji, media say.

Raids resumed today on facilities of the secretive religious sect Aum Supreme Truth as Japanese media reported that police now believe the deadly gas sarin was manufactured at a sect laboratory in the village of Kamikuishiki.

Police are searching for evidence that could link the sect with last week’s poison gas attack in Tokyo’s subways that killed 10 and injured more than 5,000.

On Sunday, police carrying blowtorches and chain saws searched three buildings at the Aum compound in snowy Kamikuishiki, 65 miles southwest of Tokyo near the foot of Mt. Fuji. They discovered a chemical production plant hidden behind a wall in one of the buildings, NHK Television reported.

An underground bunker targeted in the raid was being used as a warehouse, and a building with pipes coming out of its side “is some kind of laboratory,” a police officer told reporters at the scene.

Police also found several large containers, described as of a type normally used for refrigeration, that had been divided into small windowless units of about one yard by two yards. Each unit had small openings suitable for handing in food or removing waste.

Investigators suspect the cells may have been used to confine sect followers who attempted to flee, Kyodo News Agency reported.

In one of the buildings, police found beds in rows, food, syringes and intravenous drip equipment, as well as used and unused containers of liquid glucose.

Police also suspect there is a possibility that bodies may be buried in the sect compound, the Asahi Shimbun reported today.

Specialists are investigating whether the laboratory setup and the substances found can be used to produce sarin, the deadly nerve gas used in the Tokyo attack.

“Police now believe the lethal gas was produced at the Kamikuishiki compound,” the Daily Yomiuri newspaper reported today. Other media carried similar reports.

Police also believe that the sect may have been acquiring antidotes for sarin. A doctor at a hospital run by Aum bought 600 bottles of sarin antidote between October and March, NHK reported. Sect leaders have asserted that the Aum compound itself has been the target of poison gas attacks.

During Sunday’s raid, officers wearing heavy chemical-warfare outfits carried sturdy containers into the building they described as a laboratory after first using cardboard boxes to remove confiscated items. They loaded drums of chemicals onto trucks to be taken away for examination.

Police also seized several hundred containers of medicines, documents and books, said Masahiro Terao, head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police investigation bureau.

Cult leader Shoko Asahara, in a videotape sent to Japanese television stations last week, denied that the sect had any involvement in the Tokyo attack. He said the chemicals at the sect’s facilities were used to make plastic, ceramics and pesticides. Police are seeking Asahara for questioning.

Police who had staked out five vessels owned by Aum tried to question about half a dozen sect members in the coastal city of Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, on Sunday, but the Aum followers ignored police orders and fled on one of the boats, Yomiuri reported. It was not clear from the report whether an attempt had been made at pursuit.

Aum lawyer Yoshinobu Aoyama and Fumihiro Joyu, leader of the cult’s Moscow branch, reiterated the sect’s innocence in a television appearance Sunday on Asahi Television.

“A group affiliated with state authorities created this plot,” Aoyama said.

Joyu insisted that the chemicals discovered by police were used to make goods ranging from toothpaste to plastic food containers that would help the group set up self-sufficient farming cooperatives.

“There’s been so much Aum Supreme Truth-bashing recently that we find it harder and harder to buy what we need to buy,” Joyu said. “We have to make it ourselves.”

Investigators looking into the Tokyo subway poisonings announced today that 341 tips about suspicious persons seen on the subways on the morning of the attack have been received, partly in response to 50,000 leaflets that were distributed to request assistance from the public. Police are also waiting for some of the more seriously injured people now hospitalized to recover enough to be interviewed as potential witnesses.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, a fire of suspicious origin broke out Sunday on the campus of the Russia-Japan University, destroying documents in an office used by an Aum-affiliated organization, NHK reported.

The cult has also been controversial in Russia, where the Justice Ministry on Friday annulled the registration of the Moscow branch, accusing its leaders of having secured official recognition on the basis of “false documents.”

Times staff writer Carol J. Williams in Moscow contributed to this report.