National News Four Aum Shinrikyo members held under arrest for '95 NPA boss ambush

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Four Aum Shinrikyo figures, including a former police officer, were arrested July 7 in connection with the 1995 shooting of then National Police Agency chief Takaji Kunimatsu.

The ex-senior officer, Toshiyuki Kosugi, 39, had owned up to the shooting about a year later while still on the force but was not charged due to lack of evidence. Police divers were unable to find the gun in the Kanda River where he claimed to have thrown it.

Metropolitan Police Department officials believe the four conspired with another cultist who actually was the triggerman. The suspected shooter is Satoru Hashimoto, 37, who has been sentenced to death for the murder of a Yokohama lawyer, his wife and son, and for other crimes. He is currently appealing his death sentence.

Kunimatsu was shot three times in the stomach in front of his home in Tokyo's Arakawa Ward at around 8:30 a.m. on March 30, 1995. The gunman fled the scene on a black bicycle.

The shooting happened eight days after Tokyo police began investigating Aum in connection with the March 20, 1995, sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,500.

Police said they decided to make the arrests after finding new evidence: An analysis of gunpowder traces on one of Kosugi's coats, using the world's largest synchrotron radiation facility in Hyogo Prefecture, detected the same chemical compound as that of the bullets fired at Kunimatsu.

Arrested along with Kosugi are Mitsuo Sunaoshi, 36, Tetsuya Uemura, 49, and Koichi Ishikawa, 35.

Among the four, Sunaoshi is still a member of the cult, which renamed itself Aleph in January 2000.

(The Japan Times, Kyodo)

長官狙撃事件でオウム元幹部ら逮捕

95年に国松孝次警察庁長官(当時)が狙撃された事件で、警視庁は7日、オウム真理教(アーレフに改称)の元幹部ら4人を、同事件への関与の疑いが強まったとして、殺人未遂容疑などで逮捕した。

Shukan ST: July 16, 2004

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