30 Years After Sarin Attack / Colleague of Lawyer Killed by Aum Supreme Truth Cult Worked Hard to Find Him, Says Lessons to Be Learned From Cult’s Illegal Acts

By Yuri Ishihama / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

7:00 JST, March 6, 2025

Shuichi Kojima, a lawyer at Yokohama Law Office in Yokohama, was the colleague of Tsutsumi Sakamoto, 33, who was murdered along with his family in November 1989 by senior members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult. After Sakamoto and his family went missing from their home, Kojima worked hard to find and recover them.

The remains of Sakamoto, who was investigating illegal activities by the cult, and his family were discovered six months after the March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

Kojima, 69, spoke to The Yomiuri Shimbun about his thoughts on his late colleague and lessons to be learned from the series of incidents committed by the cult. The following is excerpted from the interview.

Sakamoto did not show up at the office or for a scheduled meeting, so I rushed to his apartment. I entered the apartment and looked for Sakamoto, his wife, Satoko, 29, and their son, Tatsuhiko, 14 months, but they weren’t there. Dirty dishes were left unwashed in the sink. Sakamoto’s glasses and wallet were still in the apartment, as well as Tatsuhiko’s baby carrier.

At the time, Sakamoto was representing families trying to get their children who had become Aum members back. The cult led by Chizuo Matsumoto (also known as Shoko Asahara), who was executed at the age of 63, had been causing issues such as forcing followers to donate all their assets to the cult. Sakamoto thought freedom of religion is guaranteed, but no religion has the freedom to make people unhappy. So he met with leaders of the cult, intending to expose their illegal actions.

It was on Nov. 8, 1989, that I became convinced Aum was the perpetrator [of the murder of Sakamoto and his family]. Sakamoto’s mother, Sachiyo, called to say that she had found a pin badge with a design of a person who looked like dancing in his apartment. I immediately searched Sakamoto’s belongings in the office and found an Aum pamphlet with a symbol that looked exactly like the image she had described.

In September 1995, the remains of Sakamoto, Satoko and Tatsuhiko were found separately in the mountains of Niigata, Toyama and Nagano prefectures. When I went to the site where Sakamoto’s remains were found, I thought to myself, “You’ve been waiting for us in this lonely place alone for almost six years,” and “Asahara, you should at least have buried the three of them together!”

Some of the cult members who committed crimes were highly educated. They had good grades in school, but they without question blindly believed the words of Matsumoto, who told them what was right and what to do. It’s similar to making definitive judgments about things just by watching short videos on social media platforms today. To avoid this, I think it is important to acquire the ability to think and make judgments for yourself.

Shuichi Kojima was born in 1955. He registered as an attorney in 1984 and joined Yokohama Law Office. Since 1989, he had served as deputy secretary general of the nationwide organization of lawyers formed to find Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his family. He has served as president of the Yokohama Bar Association (renamed to the Kanagawa Bar Association) and as a director of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

Sakamoto, family killed while sleeping

In the latter half of the 1980s, the Aum Supreme Truth cult adopted the extreme thinking of killing people who were inconvenient to the cult, calling the act “poa.” Under Matsumoto’s leadership, the cult committed crimes such as murdering Sakamoto and his family, and the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

The Sakamoto family murder was committed by Hideo Murai, Kazuaki Okazaki (who later changed his last name to Miyamae), Kiyohide Hayakawa, Tomomitsu Niimi, Tomomasa Nakagawa and Satoru Hashimoto.

On Nov. 4, 1989, at around 3 a.m., the cult members attacked Sakamoto and his family as they were sleeping in their apartment. They killed Sakamoto and his wife by strangling them after jumping on top of them. They suffocated Tatsuhiko, who started to cry, by tightly holding his nose and mouth.

Around February 1990, the Yokohama Law Office and Kanagawa prefectural police received an anonymous letter saying that Tatsuhiko’s body was buried in Nagano Prefecture. A search was conducted based on the attached map, but no remains were found then.