Cult Doctor Reportedly Tells of His Part in Subway Attack : Japan: Account says physician felt ‘pangs of conscience’ before poisoning commuters. But he couldn’t refuse orders.

Holding a bag filled with nerve gas, cult doctor Ikuo Hayashi felt a brief pang of conscience. Then he stabbed a hole in the bag with an umbrella, put it on the floor of the train in which he was riding and got off, leaving the deadly gas to poison commuters.

That is the account Hayashi has given police, according to reports Saturday that provided the first inside glimpse of the March 20 attack on Tokyo’s subways.

Several members of the doomsday cult Aum Supreme Truth have reportedly admitted to participating in the attack that killed 12 people and sickened more than 5,500. Some are said to have described how they made sarin nerve gas, and others to have admitted they carried out the attack.

But the account attributed to Hayashi, first reported in Saturday’s Asahi newspaper, went into much greater detail.

“When I looked around, the sight of many commuters leaped to my eyes,” Hayashi was quoted as telling police interrogators.

“I am a doctor. In theory, I’ve been working to save people’s lives. I thought, ‘In spite of that, if I release this sarin fluid now by puncturing the bag with the tip of my umbrella, many people could die at once.’

“Tormented by pangs of conscience, I hesitated and thought a number of times that I should stop. But I couldn’t go against [the cult’s] orders.”

The 48-year-old Hayashi, who was trained at prestigious Keio University in Tokyo, was the cult’s chief doctor.

Police refused to discuss the reported account.

Cult guru Shoko Asahara, who was arrested Tuesday, has denied any involvement in the subway attack. He hinted last week that his followers may have acted without his knowledge, but Supreme Truth members have said Asahara controlled all cult activities.

In other developments Saturday:

* Cult spokesman Fumihiro Joyu, one of the few leaders yet to be arrested, told a news conference that Supreme Truth plans to overhaul its organization.

Joyu said the cult will abolish its “construction ministry” and its “health and welfare ministry,” two groups suspected of being at the center of the cult’s nerve-gas production. And he said the cult will be run by consensus of its leaders, instead of by Asahara alone.

* The Mainichi Shimbun, a major daily, reported that the cult had plotted to kill Daisaku Ikeda, the leader of the huge Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai, using a sarin-filled projectile.

Joyu, who had previously blamed Soka Gakkai for several of the crimes Supreme Truth is accused of, said he couldn’t comment on the report because the cult members involved in the alleged plot are in custody.