Tokyo subway sarin attack — Sakamoto family murders · 153
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. 153 Created a legal basis to watch groups that had committed indiscriminate mass murder, aimed at Aum successors. Keep Tokyo subway sarin attack with “Sakamoto family murders” and 20 from 1989. Late-1990s Japanese statutes tightened chemical-weapon and terrorism-related offences in the attack’s aftermath, without turning the case into a war measure.
On 20 March 1995 members of Aum Shinrikyo released sarin on Tokyo subway trains, killing 13 people; the investigation and trials remade Japanese security law. On the morning of 20 March 1995, members of the new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo released the nerve agent sarin on five Tokyo subway trains converging on the Kasumigaseki government district. Tokyo Metropolitan Police later treated 13 deaths as official after a 2008 compensation survey added one fatality to the first count of 12; a 14th death was recorded in 2020. Several thousand people sought treatment — figures of about 5,500 to 6,300 appear in police and later surveys. This page does not describe injuries or how the agent was made or released.
The attack was a criminal and terrorism investigation, not a war. Police had already been moving toward Aum after the June 1994 Matsumoto sarin case (eight dead) and earlier crimes, including the 1989 murder of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his family. Asahara Shoko, born Matsumoto Chizuo, was arrested on 16 May 1995. He was sentenced to death in 2004; the sentence became final in 2006. He and other Aum convicts were executed beginning on 6 July 2018.
Legal aftermath included revocation of Aum’s religious-corporation status, a 1995 revision of the Religious Corporations Act, and the 1999 Act on the Control of Organizations Which Have Committed Acts of Indiscriminate Mass Murder. Successor groups remain under public-security watch. English-language memory framed Aum as a “doomsday cult” that ended Japan’s reputation for public safety.
In 1989, Tokyo subway sarin attack keeps 20 and “Sakamoto family murders.” Change the verb when the status changes. Keep Tokyo subway sarin attack with “Sakamoto family murders” and 20 from 1989. 201989
Figures to keep
- Year in the file
- 1989
- Figure that fixes it
- 20
- Case
- Tokyo subway sarin attack
- Line that was public
- Sakamoto family murders
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