Killer Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo tested poison on Australian sheep
In 1993 a group of cult members came to Australia to test out a deadly poison. The world became aware of their experiments after two fatal attacks in Japan, the first of which was 25 years ago today
In 1993 a group of 25 Japanese people arrived in Australia. They probably would have slipped unnoticed into the country but for the fact that they carried an enormous amount of excess baggage.
Some of that baggage included hazardous chemicals, for which two members of the group were each fined $2400 and their chemicals and equipment seized. Among the seized items were bottles of hydrochloric acid, marked “hand soap”.
In today’s era of heightened wariness about terrorism it would have been enough to have the people deported, but back then they were allowed to enter the country and take up residence on a remote cattle station called Banjawarn in Western Australia.
At the property they began conducting scientific experiments, but nothing that would benefit humanity. They had been manufacturing the deadly chemical sarin and were testing it on sheep.
The scientists belonged to the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult, a strange mishmash of ideas from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, yoga and the prophecies of Nostradamus.
But the world wouldn’t find out about their terrible experiments until it was too late. On June 27, 1994, 25 years ago today, they unleashed their poison in an attack on the town of Matsumoto, in Japan’s Nagano prefecture. At least eight people died.
But there was worse to come. Nine months later the cult would unleash an attack on the Tokyo subway.
The cult was founded by Shoko Asahara, who was actually born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955. Poor and suffering glaucoma from birth, Asahara was all but blind, which meant he could be educated for free at a special school for the blind.
He was a bully at school, with an inflated sense of self-importance and failed to be elected student president. He also failed to get the marks to get into college. So he turned to studying traditional Chinese medicine, paying his way by practising acupuncture.
But Asahara soon started to dabble beyond his area of expertise. He was fined for dispensing drugs without a licence, selling things such as orange peel soaked in alcohol as a miracle cure for just about everything. But he also delved into religion and spirituality. He set up a meditation studio, concocting his own strange religion — a mixture of Eastern philosophies and Western ideas.
Asahara called his religion Aum Shinrikyo, meaning Supreme Truth, and had it registered as a religion in 1987. He called himself the “messiah” and gathered followers, charging them handsomely for the privilege of the enlightenment he offered. His religion was not about hope and love, it was laced with a huge amount of paranoia. Asahara believed that an apocalypse was coming and he began preparations for the day it would happen.
He also began planning to help bring it about.
Many of his recruits were lonely, vulnerable, young students. He was particularly interested in those who had practical skills in computing and science, but also worked hard to attract the wealthy to increase the resources he had at hand to bring his plans to fruition.
Cult members began to experiment with chemical and biological weapons including anthrax. But they would become known for their manufacture and dissemination of sarin. Australia was just one of the many places they manufactured the chemical and tested it on animals.
When they were satisfied with the potency of their weapon they tried it out on humans in Matsumoto. The target was chosen because the town had stopped Asahara’s plans to erect an office and factory there. He hoped to kill the judges ruling on the case.
A truck was loaded with a tank of liquid sarin that was heated and the resulting gas dispersed by fans. The attack started after 10pm and people soon developed symptoms, such as running noses and eyes, vomiting, headaches, seizures and blindness. Eight people died and hundreds injured.
Although an anonymous tip named Aum Shinrikyo, the members would not be brought to justice for the attack until after they released sarin on the Tokyo subway in March 20, 1995, killing 12 people. Police quickly linked the cult to both acts and raided their offices and compounds. Asahara and several other cultists were arrested and sentenced to death. They spent years on death row before they were finally executed last year.
The cult continued but later changed its name to Aleph and then split into two factions. It is still closely monitored by the police. Earlier this year, a cult sympathiser rammed people with his car in a revenge attack.History page
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