30 Years After Sarin Attack / Former Police Officer Recalls Arrest of Aum Supreme Truth Cult Leader in 1995, Discovery of Asahara in Hidden Room

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:00 JST, March 13, 2025

Masaharu Yamada, former chief of the Metropolitan Police Department’s first investigation division, directed the arrest of Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, at a facility in what was then the village of Kamikuishiki, Yamanashi Prefecture, on May 16, 1995.

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At the time, Yamada was deputy chief of the division. Kamikuishiki was later merged with neighboring municipalities. Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, would be executed at age 63.

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer Tatsuhiro Ishizawa spoke with Yamada, 84, to ask how he was fearful but overcame his feelings to fulfill his duty.

After we started our investigation into Aum on March 22, 1995, I went nearly 20 times to visit the cult’s facilities in Kamikuishiki, where chemical byproducts from producing sarin were found. We sought the arrest warrant late the previous night, so I began the day without having slept much.

I put on new underwear and secretly placed a Buddhist rosary that I received from a prosecutor I was close with into the breast pocket of my jacket.

I was determined to be the first person to rush into the place and face Matsumoto, and if it seemed like sarin was about to be used, I would have to use my handgun. Having prepared myself for this, I began the search at 5:25 a.m.

As a matter of fact, on the previous night of May 15, I heard that Seiichi Endo, who was the cult’s “health and welfare minister” and had been arrested in another case, had said he wanted to tell me something. [Endo was later executed at age 58.] Around 11 p.m. that night, I went to the Himonya Police Station, where he was being detained, and he told me, “Our guru is between the first and second floors of the Satian No. 6 [one of Aum’s facilities].”

During the search, we tore apart the ceilings with chainsaws and hammers. But even after two hours we couldn’t find him. I wondered whether I had been lied to [by Endo].

When we took a break, a young senior police officer noticed that there was a vent on an exterior wall between the second and third floors. We broke a wall on the second floor and peeped into a space under the ceiling. There we saw a massive man hiding face-down. One of our investigators asked, “Are you Asahara?” and in a low voice he replied, “Yes.”

The concealed room was 50 centimeters high, 103 centimeters wide and 335 centimeters long. It was very narrow inside and two to three of my men pulled him out.

When a doctor accompanying us tried to check on his health, Matsumoto violently slapped the doctor’s hand away, saying, “Stop that. You’ll get your karma on me.” I chided him. “[The doctor] is doing this for you,” I said.

At 9:45 a.m., we arrested Matsumoto on suspicion of murders and attempted murders in the sarin subway attack. His hair was disordered and his clothes were crumpled. I didn’t sense anything charismatic about the man in front of me.

Followers of Aum blindly believed in its religious theory, which even justified murder. I felt keenly the terror of mind control. Since then, 30 years have passed. To be honest, I’ve gradually forgotten the horror I felt at that time, and now I’m unable to recall it. I feel the passage of time.

Takashi Kurogochi

Yamada was born in 1941. After graduating from the College of Law at Ritsumeikan University, he joined the Metropolitan Police Department in 1965. He specialized in criminal investigations, and in a mass raid on Aum on March 22, 1995, he led the search of the cult’s facilities in Kamikuishiki, Yamanashi Prefecture, as deputy chief of the MPD’s first investigation division. He was promoted to division chief in February 1998. After serving in his final post as chief of the Ikebukuro Police Station, he retired in February 2000.