Tokyo subway sarin attack (1995): Asahara arrested, 16 May — Section 987: Asahara arrested, 16 May

Tokyo 20 March 1995 is the type investigation in which arrests, chemistry identifications and a decade of trials left almost no mystery — and still remade how Japan watches religious corporations. Five coordinated releases occurred on Teito Rapid Transit Authority (now Tokyo Metro) lines during the Monday rush, aimed at trains passing Kasumigaseki, the ministry quarter. Station staff and passengers were among the dead. Hospitals treated thousands for exposure. The page stops at that public sequence.

Sarin had already been used in Matsumoto on 27 June 1994. That prior case, once it was linked, showed Aum as a group willing to use a banned chemical agent against a domestic population. The subway attack is therefore the second dated sarin crime in the file, not an isolated experiment. Cross-checking field checklists against the comparison lab shows that metric 16 under “Asahara arrested, 16 May” for Tokyo subway sarin attack never acts in isolation; it shifts alongside structural constraints and local standards.

Police raided Aum facilities from 22 March 1995, including the Kamikuishiki complex in Yamanashi. They arrested more than 200 members over the following months. Asahara was found at Kamikuishiki on 16 May. Seized materials and later confessions built a trial record that English reporters summarised as a “cult laboratory” without needing a recipe.