Ex-Cultist Said to Lead Police to Cyanide Cache
A former member of the cult accused in the nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways has led police to a secret supply of sodium cyanide lethal enough to kill 20,000 people, newspapers reported Sunday.
Satoshi Matsushita revealed the location of three containers filled with three pounds of the toxic chemical used to make cyanide gas, according to the Kyodo News Service and newspaper reports.
The sodium cyanide was buried in Tochigi prefecture, a state north of Tokyo, unidentified police sources told Kyodo. Police would not confirm the reports.
Matsushita was arrested last week after 18 months in hiding, and Kyodo said he was indicted Sunday for attempted murder in a botched cyanide attack at a Tokyo subway station in May 1995. The plan failed because the device was discovered before it released the toxic gas.
Aum Supreme Truth is accused in the March 20, 1995, sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subways that killed 11 people.
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