Japanese Cult Implicates Its Founder in ’95 Subway Killings

Nearly five years after a lethal poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Aum Supreme Truth leaders Tuesday admitted for the first time that cult founder Shoko Asahara was probably involved in that mass killing and other crimes.

In a communique sent to news organizations and posted on the group’s Web site, cult leaders announced that Aum is changing its name, “dramatically” reforming its teachings and selling off $952,000 worth of property to compensate its victims. Twelve people died in the sarin gas attack, and about 5,000 others were sickened.

The leaders said they will continue to view Asahara, who is on trial for masterminding the attack, as a “genius meditator” and a “spiritual being” but that he will no longer command the religious group.

Government officials, cult victims and outraged neighbors of Aum facilities were unanimous in dismissing the statement as a ploy to evade a new law aimed at cracking down on the cult.

“They can change their name, but their beliefs are no different,” said Masao Shibata, 68, head of a volunteer task force of residents that is trying to kick about 15 cultists, including two of Asahara’s children, out of an Aum-owned facility in Otawara, about 80 miles north of Tokyo.

“They did those [killings] calmly, and they lie calmly, so we cannot trust them now,” Shibata said. “We believe they are still dangerous.”

Public security officials have applied for permission to place the cult under permanent surveillance. Senior cult members are expected to be questioned Thursday in an effort to determine whether the group still poses a threat that merits surveillance, seizure of its assets or other counter-terrorism measures.

A decision to allow surveillance is widely expected as early as next month to quiet the public clamor for action against Aum--and defuse local vigilante groups that have sprung up around cult sites.

The cult has survived despite confessions by a number of members who took part in the March 1995 gas attack. So far, 162 cultists have been convicted, one was acquitted, and 33 remain on trial.

Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, is a half-blind guru now known best for his incomprehensible rantings and odd facial contortions in the courtroom. The media’s focus on this odd behavior, defense attorney Osamu Watanabe said, has obscured the fact that the prosecution has yet to present a motive for Asahara’s alleged ordering of the subway gassing and other crimes.

Although many senior Aum members have confessed--and two are appealing death sentences--”we still don’t know what happened and how it actually happened,” Watanabe said.

The cult still has 500 full-time members and 700 to 800 other believers, said journalist Shoko Egawa, a friend of a lawyer who was slain by the cult along with his wife and infant son.

Egawa said the cultists pose no danger in the short term, while all Japan’s angry eyes are upon them, but could become aggressive again if public scrutiny wanes.

Tuesday’s statement was released in the names of Aum’s top two leaders: Fumihiro Joyu, 37, the handsome and charismatic former No. 2 leader who was released from prison last month after serving time on perjury and forgery charges, and Tatsuko Muraoka, 49, the acting head of the cult.

Muraoka will replace Asahara as head of the group, which is changing its name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the statement said.

Little is known about Muraoka, who had served as a nanny to one of Asahara’s daughters before becoming acting head of the cult after the 1995 arrests of Asahara, Joyu and other senior leaders. Before she joined, she was reportedly a talented linguist who made her living translating romance novels.

Aum released a statement in December apologizing to Japan and promising compensation for victims, but Tuesday’s statement goes further. In it, the cult pledges to sell seven Aum-owned properties and use an unspecified portion of members’ incomes to compensate victims. But it said the group needs a year to vacate the Otawara site.

“We want them out sooner, although they have no place to go,” Shibata said.

Yoshifu Arita, an investigative journalist and biographer of Joyu, said the cult’s offer to sell $952,000 worth of property will surely be deemed inadequate because tax authorities probing Aum’s finances believe cultists have 50 times that sum hidden away.

The group’s statement Tuesday said it poses no danger to society and will scrap a portion of its teachings that was criticized as justifying murder.

Journalist Egawa said the cult appeared to be trying to lessen its pariah status by admitting Asahara’s guilt, because he is almost certain to be convicted, while continuing to honor his religious contribution to ensure continued adherence by Asahara’s true believers.

Those whose lives were crushed by Japan’s worst domestic terrorist attack were not mollified.

“It took them five years just to apologize,” Kiyoe Iwata, whose daughter was killed in the subway, told NHK television. “To them, these five years mean nothing. To me, they were terribly painful. . . . For the future, the only thing we can do is keep a close eye on them.”

Researcher Hisako Ueno in The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.