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64-899: It supervises the Security Bureau and the Public Security Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department , and Security departments of other Prefectural police headquarters for those issues. The current chief of the Security Bureau is Yūji Sakoda  [ ja ] . Organization of the Security Bureau is as follows: The Security Department ( 警備部 , Keibi-bu ) is charged with internal counter-terrorism , countering cybercrime and surveillance of potentially threatening groups, organisations, and social phenomena. It's also tasked with providing close protection requirements to VIPs. The Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Department ( 外事情報部 , Gaiji-jōhō-bu )

128-480: A yoga and meditation class known as Oumu Shinsen no Kai ( オウム神仙の会 , "Aum Heavenly Sage Association" ) and steadily grew in the following years. It gained official status as a religious organization in 1989 and attracted a considerable number of graduates from Japan's elite universities, thus being dubbed a "religion for the elite". Although Aum was, from the beginning, considered controversial in Japan, it

192-471: A Boeing 747 bound for Hakodate from Tokyo. The hijacker claimed to be an Aum member in possession of sarin and plastic explosives, but these claims were ultimately found to be false. Asahara was finally found hiding within a wall of a cult building known as "The 6th Satian" in the Kamikuishiki complex on 16 May and was arrested. On the same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of Yukio Aoshima ,

256-528: A coordinated attack on five trains in the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 more. Some estimates claim as many as 6,000 people were injured by the sarin. It is difficult to obtain exact numbers since many victims are reluctant to come forward. Prosecutors allege that Asahara was tipped off by an insider about planned police raids on cult facilities and ordered an attack in central Tokyo to divert police attention away from

320-501: A crowd of about 100 reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Korean member of Yamaguchi-gumi , was arrested and eventually convicted of the murder. His motive remains unknown. On the evening of 5 May, a burning paper bag was discovered in a toilet in Tokyo's busy Shinjuku station . Upon examination it was revealed that it was a hydrogen cyanide device which, had it not been extinguished in time, would have released enough gas into

384-450: A deep coma. Doctors in the hospital suspected at the time he had been poisoned with an organophosphate pesticide. But the cause of death was pinned down only after cult members arrested for the subway attack in Tokyo in March 1995 confessed to the killing. Ethyl methylphosphonate, methylphosphonic acid, and diisopropyl-2-(methylthio) ethylamine were later found in the body of the victim. Unlike

448-457: A final conflict culminating in a nuclear ' Armageddon ', borrowing the term from the Book of Revelation 16:16 " Humanity would end, except for the elite few who joined Aum. Aum's mission was not only to spread the word of salvation , but also to survive these End Times . Asahara predicted the gathering at Armageddon would happen in 1997. Kaplan notes that in his lectures, Shoko Asahara referred to

512-472: A large number of complaints about bad odors but no infections. At the end of 1993, the cult started secretly manufacturing the nerve agent sarin and, later, VX . Aum tested its sarin on sheep at Banjawarn Station , a remote pastoral property in Western Australia , killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then used in several assassinations (and attempts) over 1994–95. On the night of 27 June 1994,

576-526: A member who had escaped, from a Tokyo street and took him to a compound in Kamikuishiki near Mount Fuji , where he was killed. His corpse was destroyed in a microwave -powered incinerator and the remnants disposed of in Lake Kawaguchi . Before Kariya was abducted, he had been receiving threatening phone calls demanding to know the whereabouts of his sister, and he had left a note saying, "If I disappear, I

640-456: A small circle of mostly senior Aum members committed atrocities and the extent of personal involvement by Asahara remain unclear, although several theories have attempted to explain these events. In response to the prosecution's charge that Asahara ordered the subway attacks to distract authorities, the defense maintained that Asahara was not aware of events, pointing to his deteriorating health. Shortly after his arrest, Asahara abandoned his post as

704-431: A somewhat missionary attitude. Isaac Asimov 's science fiction Foundation Trilogy was referenced "depicting as it does an elite group of spiritually evolved scientists forced to go underground during an age of barbarism so as to prepare themselves for the moment...when they will emerge to rebuild civilization". Lifton posited that Aum's publications used Christian and Buddhist ideas to impress what he considered to be

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768-583: A terrorist organization until 2022, when the State Department determined the group to be largely defunct as a terrorist organization. The Public Security Intelligence Agency considered Aleph and Hikari no Wa to be branches of a "dangerous religion" and it announced in January 2015 that they would remain under surveillance for three more years. The Tokyo District Court canceled the extension to surveillance of Hikari no Wa in 2017 following legal challenges from

832-524: Is charged with counter-intelligence , and international counter-terrorism. It has a unit known as YAMA, which has access to classified information based on intercepts from various communications facilities. The Security Operations Department ( 警備運用部 , Keibi-unyō-bu ) replaced the former Security Division ( 警備課 , Keibi-ka ) in 2019. It's mandated with security and protecting VIPs (1st Division) and response to large-scale disaster or terrorism (2nd Division). Prospective SB officers are trained at

896-558: The Chongryon website and the Korea News Service. After a discovery of sophisticated radios by police during a raid on a JRCL Revolutionary Marxist Faction safehouse on April 10, 1998, PSB officials had reorganized their communications network to better safeguard it against unwanted intrusions. In 2014, a report was made thanks to a leak that PSB officers were conducting covert surveillance activities on Muslims residents living in

960-472: The National Diet in 1999, was murdered in 2002. For over 15 years, only three fugitives were being actively sought. At 11:50 p.m. on 31 December 2011, Makoto Hirata surrendered himself to the police and was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the 1995 abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, a non-member who had died during an Aum kidnapping and interrogation. On 3 June 2012, police captured Naoko Kikuchi,

1024-526: The National Police Agency , was shot four times near his house in Tokyo and was seriously wounded. While many suspected Aum involvement in the shooting, the Sankei Shimbun reported that Hiroshi Nakamura is suspected of the crime, but nobody has been charged. On 23 April 1995, Hideo Murai , the head of Aum's Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death outside the cult's Tokyo headquarters amidst

1088-417: The " Lamb of God ". Asahara's purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world, and he claimed he could transfer spiritual power to his followers and ultimately take away their sins and bad deeds. While some scholars reject Aum Shinrikyo's claims of Buddhist characteristics and affiliations with Japanese Buddhism , other scholars refer to it as an offshoot of Japanese Buddhism , and this

1152-459: The 1995 attacks and other crimes. Six additional followers were executed on 26 July. At 12:10 am, on New Year's Day 2019, at least nine people were injured (one seriously) when a car was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating the new year on Takeshita Street in Tokyo. Local police reported the arrest of Kazuhiro Kusakabe, the suspected driver, who allegedly admitted to intentionally ramming his vehicle into crowds to protest his opposition to

1216-594: The Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia , claim that its practices remained secret. Initiation rituals, assert the authors of the book, often involved the use of hallucinogens , such as LSD . Religious practices often involved extremely ascetic practices claimed to be "yoga". These included everything from renunciants being hung upside down to being given shock therapy . In

1280-486: The Bible were removed. The group apologized to the victims of the sarin gas attack and established a special compensation fund. Provocative publications and activities that alarmed society are no longer published. Fumihiro Joyu , one of the few senior leaders of the group under Asahara who did not face serious charges, became official head of the organization in 1999. Kōki Ishii , a legislator who formed an anti-Aum committee in

1344-762: The Deputy Superintendent General. In the Japanese police organization, only the Metropolitan Police Department becomes "the bureau" where the security police branch becomes independent. In other prefectural police forces, the Public Security Section and Foreign Affairs Division are installed in a Security Department. Tokyo is seen as an exception since it had been working with the Japanese National Police Agency for

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1408-632: The Greater Tokyo Area. The PSB is structured according to the following: Prospective PSB officers are trained at the National Police Academy in intelligence gathering techniques. Aum Shinrikyo Aleph ( Japanese : アレフ , Hepburn : Arefu ) , better known by their former name Aum Shinrikyo ( オウム真理教 , Oumu Shinrikyō , literally 'religion of Aum Supreme Truth') , is a Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out

1472-411: The National Police Academy in intelligence gathering techniques. Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau The Public Security Bureau ( 警視庁公安部 , Keishichō-kōanbu ) is a bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) in charge of public security with jurisdiction over the Tokyo metropolis . It has a force of more than 2,000 officers. The bureau reports to

1536-762: The PSB in 2002 for divulging military secrets under the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement to a Russian GRU operative, who was identified as Aleksei Shchelkonogov. Three activists of the Tachikawa Jieitai Kanshi Tentomura had been said to be prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International when they had arrested by police with the PSB investigating them for conducting anti-war activities after illegally entering an SDF housing complex in Tachikawa in 2004. PSB officers had been involved in

1600-738: The PSB started on December 19, 1945 when the Security Division was established in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. In February 1946, the SD was changed to the Public Security Division. In April 1952, the PSD's first and second security departments were established with the former taking charge of the TMPD's riot police units while the latter carried out security information operations. In April 1957,

1664-538: The Public Security Examination Commission in January 1997. The group underwent a number of transformations in the aftermath of Asahara's arrest and trial. For a brief time, Asahara's two preteen sons officially replaced him as guru. It re-grouped under the new name "Aleph" in February 2000. It announced a change in doctrine: religious texts related to controversial Vajrayana Buddhist doctrines and

1728-710: The TMPD's Security Department 1, Security Department 2, and Metropolitan Police Department Reserve were renamed as the Security Department, the Public Security Department and the Riot Police. After the September 11 attacks in the US, the PSB revamped its structure to include three intelligence sections in 2002. The PSB had been mobilized to investigate all Aum Shinrikyo facilities after the deadly sarin gas attack on

1792-575: The Tokyo subway . Following the discovery of an Aum cultist who had been employed by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force after sensitive military information had been leaked out, the PSB had investigated the matter. The PSB had been the leading agency to investigate reports that Aum Shinrikyo had acquired names of 3,000 Honda executives and sensitive data from government ministries and other important facilities via Aum-created software. The TMPD announced on November 2, 2020 that

1856-528: The United States as " The Beast " from the Book of Revelation, predicting it would eventually attack Japan. Asahara outlined a doomsday prophecy, which included a Third World War instigated by the U.S. Arthur Goldwag, author of a book on conspiracies and secret societies, characterizes Asahara as someone who was influenced by conspiratorial writings about Jews , Freemasons and the British royal family . In

1920-469: The arrest of former Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO) official Toshihiko Shimizu, accused of providing classified data to a Russian embassy official, supposedly posing as a diplomat in 2008. under the National Public Service Law  [ ja ] . On December 15, 2020, PSB officers investigated the activities of a South Korean man living in Tokyo accused of hacking into

1984-505: The broadcast. The following month Sakamoto, his wife and his child went missing from their home in Yokohama . The police were unable to resolve the case at the time, although some of his colleagues publicly voiced their suspicions of the group. It was not until after the 1995 Tokyo attack that they were found to have been murdered and their bodies dumped in separate locations by cult members. Kaplan and Marshall allege in their book that Aum

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2048-460: The cases for sarin ( Matsumoto incident and Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway), VX was not used for mass murder. On January 4, the cult tried to kill Hiroyuki Nagaoka, an important member of the Aum Victims' Society, a civil organization that protested against the sect's activities, in the same way. In February 1995, several cult members kidnapped Kiyoshi Kariya, a 69-year-old brother of

2112-471: The crimes "plunged people, not only in Japan but in other countries as well, into deadly fear and shook society to its core." Amnesty International criticized use of the death penalty in the case. While executions are rare in Japan, they have public support according to surveys. There were 13 members on death row at the time: Aum Shinrikyo members executed on 6 July 2018: The six remaining Aum Shinrikyo members were executed on 26 July 2018. Initially it

2176-556: The cult at the time. It was only after the Tokyo subway attack that Aum Shinrikyo was discovered to be behind the Matsumoto sarin attack. At the end of 1994, the cult broke into the Hiroshima factory of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in an attempt to steal technical documents on military weapons such as tanks and artillery. In December 1994 and January 1995, Aum Shinrikyo member Masami Tsuchiya synthesized 100 to 200 grams of VX which

2240-559: The cult carried out a chemical weapons attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto , Nagano . With the help of a converted refrigerator truck , members of the cult released a cloud of sarin which floated near the homes of judges who were overseeing a lawsuit concerning a real-estate dispute which was predicted to go against the cult. This Matsumoto incident killed eight and harmed 500 more. Police investigations focused only on an innocent local resident, Yoshiyuki Kouno , and failed to implicate

2304-478: The cult, he was included on Aum's assassination list. An assassination attempt was made on Kobayashi in 1993. In 1991, Aum began to use wiretapping to get NTT uniforms/equipment and created a manual for wiretapping. In July 1993, cult members sprayed large amounts of liquid containing Bacillus anthracis spores from a cooling tower on the roof of Aum Shinrikyo's Tokyo headquarters. However, their plan to cause an anthrax epidemic failed. The attack resulted in

2368-540: The dangers of foreign-backed corporate espionage. The PSB had failed in securing a Russian man wanted for spying in Japanese territory as a suspected agent of the SVR since the 1960s when he left Japan in 1995 and reentered the country several times before being unaccounted for when the spy used a Japanese name to obtain a Japanese passport in Vienna. An ex- Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces warrant officer had been investigated by

2432-561: The deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for the Matsumoto sarin attack the previous year. The group says that those who carried out the attacks did so secretly, without their plans being known to other executives and ordinary believers. Asahara insisted on his innocence in a radio broadcast relayed from Russia and directed toward Japan . On 6 July 2018, after exhausting all appeals, Asahara and six followers on death row were executed as punishment for

2496-524: The death penalty, specifically in retaliation for the execution of the aforementioned Aum cult members. Aum Shinrikyo, which split into Aleph and Hikari no Wa in 2007, had already been formally designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including Russia , Canada , Japan , France , Kazakhstan , as well as the European Union . It was previously designated by the United States as

2560-507: The early days, Aum was able to recruit a variety of people ranging from bureaucrats to personnel from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. The cult started attracting controversy in the late 1980s with accusations of deception of recruits, holding cult members against their will, forcing members to donate money and murdering a cult member who tried to leave in February 1989. In October 1989,

2624-435: The foreign affairs division will be revamped to have two separate units to deal with intelligence matters concerning China and North Korea, giving it a total of four separate units. On March 19, 2021, the PSB completed reorganizing its units and their work would start by April 1, 2021 with 30 more officers assigned to the new units. On December 25, 2022, the PSB produced a promotional video and starred Rena Nōnen aka Non on

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2688-459: The governor of Tokyo, blowing off the fingers of his secretary's hand. Asahara was initially charged with 23 counts of murder and 16 other offenses. The trial, dubbed "the trial of the century" by the press, ruled Asahara guilty of masterminding the attack and sentenced him to death . The indictment was appealed unsuccessfully. A number of senior members accused of participation, such as Masami Tsuchiya, also received death sentences. The reasons why

2752-609: The group to be self-sufficient in manufacturing copies of the Soviet Union's main infantry weapon, the AK-74 ; one rifle was smuggled into Japan, to be studied so that Aum could reverse engineer and mass-produce the AK-74. Police seized AK-74 components and blueprints from a vehicle used by an Aum member on April 6, 1995. On the morning of 20 March 1995, Aum members released a binary chemical weapon , most closely chemically similar to sarin, in

2816-493: The group's negotiations with Tsutsumi Sakamoto , an anti-cult lawyer threatening a lawsuit against them which could potentially bankrupt the group, failed. In the same month, Sakamoto recorded an interview for a talk show on the Japanese TV station TBS . The network then had the interview secretly shown to the group without notifying Sakamoto, intentionally breaking protection of sources . The group then pressured TBS to cancel

2880-458: The group, but continued to keep Aleph under watch. The government appealed the cancellation, and in February 2019, the Tokyo High Court overturned the lower court's decision, reinstating the surveillance, citing no major changes between Aum Shinrikyo and Hikari no Wa. The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo 's Shibuya ward in 1987, starting off as

2944-470: The group. The attack evidently backfired, and police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country. Over the next week, the full scale of Aum's activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki , on the foot of Mount Fuji , police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. While the finding of biological warfare agents such as anthrax and Ebola cultures

3008-432: The longest time since they share the same location. The PSB is not the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation , despite some claims that it is. It does not concern with ordinary criminal activities. The main focus of the PSB are activities which threaten national security and therefore, their work is similar to Special Branches of British and Commonwealth police forces. The establishment of

3072-468: The main image of worship; it also incorporates Christian millennialist ideas, the theory and practice of yoga , and the writings of Nostradamus . Its founder, Shoko Asahara (born Chizuo Matsumoto), claimed that he sought to restore "original Buddhism" but employed Christian millennialist rhetoric. In 1992, Asahara published a foundational book, declaring himself to be " Christ ", Japan's only fully enlightened master, as well as identifying himself as

3136-534: The more shrewd and educated Japanese who were not attracted to boring, purely traditional sermons . In private, both Asahara and his top disciples reportedly continued their humble lifestyles, the only exception being the armored Mercedes-Benz gifted by a wealthy follower. Advertising and recruitment activities, dubbed the "Aum Salvation plan", included claims of curing physical illnesses with health improvement techniques, realizing life goals by improving intelligence and positive thinking, and concentrating on what

3200-540: The opinion of Daniel A. Metraux, Aum Shinrikyo justified its violence through its own unique interpretation of Buddhist ideas and doctrines, such as the Buddhist concepts of Mappō and Shōbō . Aum claimed that by bringing about the end of the world, they would restore Shōbō . Furthermore, Lifton believes, Asahara "interpreted the Tibetan Buddhist concept of phowa in order to claim that by killing someone contrary to

3264-489: The organization's leader, and maintained silence afterward, refusing to communicate even with lawyers and family members. On 21 June 1995, Asahara acknowledged that in January 1994 he ordered the killing of a sect member, Kotaro Ochida, a pharmacist at an Aum hospital. Ochida, who tried to escape from a sect compound, was held down and strangled by another Aum member who was allegedly told that he too would be killed if he did not strangle Ochida. On 10 October 1995, Aum Shinrikyo

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3328-455: The raids, Aum issued statements claiming that the chemicals were for fertilizers. Over the next six weeks, over 150 cult members were arrested for a variety of offenses. The media was stationed outside Aum's Tokyo headquarters on Komazawa Dori in Aoyama for months after the attack and arrests waiting for action and to get images of the cult's other members. On 30 March 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of

3392-517: The second fugitive, acting on a tip from local residents. Acting on information from the capture of Kikuchi, including recent photographs showing a modified appearance, the last remaining fugitive, Katsuya Takahashi, was captured on 15 June 2012. He is said to have been the driver in the Tokyo gas attack and was caught in Tokyo, having been on the run for 17 years. On 6 July 2018, Asahara and six other Aum Shinrikyo members were executed by hanging . Japan's Justice Minister Yōko Kamikawa stated that

3456-456: The ventilation system to potentially kill 10,000 commuters. On 4 July, several undetonated cyanide devices were found at other locations in the Tokyo subway. During this time, numerous cult members were arrested for various offenses, but arrests of the most senior members on the charge of the subway gassing had not yet taken place. In June, an individual unrelated to Aum had launched a copycat attack by hijacking All Nippon Airways Flight 857 ,

3520-497: Was abducted by Aum Shinrikyo". Police made plans to simultaneously raid cult facilities across Japan in March 1995. Prosecutors alleged Asahara was tipped off about this and that he ordered the Tokyo subway attack to divert police. Meanwhile, Aum had also attempted to manufacture 1,000 assault rifles , but only completed one. According to the testimony of Kenichi Hirose at the Tokyo District Court in 2000, Asahara wanted

3584-499: Was also connected with such activities as extortion . The group, authors report, "commonly took patients into its hospitals and then forced them to pay exorbitant medical bills". The cult is known to have considered assassinations of several individuals critical of the cult, such as the heads of Buddhist sects Soka Gakkai and The Institute for Research in Human Happiness . After cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi began satirizing

3648-573: Was expected that Shoko Asahara's ashes would be collected by his youngest daughter according to his will. She urged her relatives and cult members to "put an end to the Aum and stop hating society". The ashes were kept at the detention center for fears of reprisals from other elements of the cult. In 2020 the Tokyo Family Court ruled that the second daughter, who had the "closest" relationship with her father, and who had repeatedly visited her father while he

3712-473: Was how the movement generally defined and saw itself. Their teachings claimed a nuclear apocalypse was predicted to occur soon, as the result of a conspiracy involving Jewish financiers, Freemasons, and war profiteers. The United States would lead a Western nuclear attack on Japan in 2000 or 2006, and WWIII would start. It would be fought with particle beam weapons . According to Robert Jay Lifton , an American psychiatrist and author: [Asahara] described

3776-548: Was important at the expense of leisure. This was to be accomplished by practicing ancient teachings, accurately translated from original Pali sutras (these three were referred to as "threefold salvation"). These efforts resulted in Aum becoming one of the fastest-growing religious groups in Japan's history. David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, in their 1996 book, The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of

3840-597: Was incarcerated, should receive his hair and remains. On July 2, 2021, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the fourth daughter and upheld the ruling of the family court. In 2024 the Tokyo District Court ordered the government to hand over the remains to daughter. Aum Shinrikyo is a syncretic belief system that draws upon Asahara's idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism , as well as Hinduism , taking Shiva as

3904-489: Was not initially associated with serious crimes. It was during this period that Asahara became obsessed with Biblical prophecies . Aum's public relations activities included publishing comics and animated cartoons that attempted to tie its religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes, including space missions, powerful weapons, world conspiracies, and the quest for ultimate truth. Aum published several magazines including Vajrayana Sacca and Enjoy Happiness , adopting

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3968-412: Was ordered stripped of its official status as a "religious legal entity " and was declared bankrupt in early 1996. However, the group continues to operate under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion , funded by a successful computer business and donations, and under strict surveillance . Attempts to ban the group altogether under the 1952 Subversive Activities Prevention Law were rejected by

4032-417: Was reported, those claims now appear to have been widely exaggerated. There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people. Police also found laboratories to manufacture drugs such as LSD , methamphetamine , and a crude form of truth serum , a safe containing millions of U.S. dollars in cash and gold, and cells, many still containing prisoners. During

4096-578: Was used to attack three people. On 2 December, Noboru Mizuno, who was believed to have assisted former members of Aum, was attacked with syringes containing VX gas , leaving him in a serious condition. Tadahito Hamaguchi, whom Asahara suspected was a spy, was attacked at 7:00 a.m. on 12 December 1994, on the street in Osaka by Tomomitsu Niimi and another Aum member, who sprinkled the nerve agent on his neck. He chased them for about 100 yards (91 m) before collapsing, dying 10 days later without coming out of

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