Who Was Protecting Aum Shinri Kyo?

I'm not ready to make any conclusions on links between Aum and other organizations, and I certainly don't have proof of such connections. However, there are many anomalies that should be pointed out. As I am wont to say, "I don't have the answers, but I've got some damned good questions."

It is possible, I suppose, to explain away all the events I'm about to describe as simple incompetence and dereliction of duty on the part of the police, and normally I don't look for clandestine agendas when overt ineptness would explain matters. In this case, however, it is very hard to accept incompetence alone as a sufficient explanation.

Police ignored kidnapping and abuse<br> The Matsumoto Investigation<br> Selective Police Surveillance<br> Follow the Money

Police Ignored Kidnapping and Abuse

Between 1991 and 1995 over 60 people escaped from Aum facilities in Yamanasi. These people all told the police stories of confinement and abuse. Many told the police of illegal drug use as well. In all cases, the police refused to move against the cult. Some escapees' children remained hostage within the Aum compounds, but even then, the police refused to take definitive action, preferring to "negotiate" with the sect for the return of the children. If the negotiations did not produce results, no other action was taken.

In three cases Aum members were re-abducted in broad daylight in front of witnesses. One woman escaped from the cult, made her way to a nearby farmhouse, and told the owner what had happened. The farmer gave her 2000 yen for a ticket home and drove her to the nearest train station. At the next station, however, five men dragged her from the train and brutally beat her in front of scores of people. She was then shoved into an Aum-registered car which was seen driving back to the compound. The police never investigated the matter, and made no arrests or attempts to secure the release of the woman who had been kidnapped. In a similar incident, the assailants were actually wearing Aum headgear. Again, the police took no action.

To whom were the police answering? They clearly were not interested in enforcing the law since they were willing to overlook kidnapping, battery, confinement and drug use. They clearly were not answering to the local residents, most of whom desperately wanted to be rid of Aum Shinri Kyo. Is simple dereliction of duty enough to explain this?

The Matsumoto Investigation

As with the Tokyo gassing, the police quickly came up with the official story and clung doggedly to it. Kono had made the sarin, perhaps accidentally, while trying to formulate a home-made weed- killer in his fishpond. Aside from the utter absurdity of the conclusion, there were technical problems. Kono didn't possess the chemicals needed to make sarin, sarin cannot be made with such a crude facilities, and sarin certainly cannot be made accidentally.

Organic chemists and weapons specialists all over the world were pointing these things out, but the police were sticking to their story, and the Japanese media was fully supportive. The police had their man.

Stranger still, the police detected a sarin residue outside Aum's Kamikuishiki compound shortly after the Matsumoto attack. This reside had also been detected at the scene of the attack. These findings were kept secret, and the investigation of Kono continued in earnest. The police even got Kono to confess that he did indeed create the sarin. If the case had gone to trial, there is little doubt that Kono would have been convicted.

Is pride, pigheadedness and incompetence enough to explain police actions here? Were the police really willing to frame an innocent man rather than admit that their first suspicions were in error, or were authorities looking for a fall guy?

Selective Police Surveillance

When the police failed to find any sarin, working firearms, or ammunition, the explanation of choice was that these items had all been removed before the police raids began. Indeed, it has been reported ad nauseam that several cars and vans left the compound only hours before the raids began. The question no one seems to be asking is why were these vehicles not followed?

Given the unprecedented size and nature of the raids, it's understandable that the police took two days to begin them, but why were Aum vehicles allowed to leave the very site of the suspected nerve-gas factory unobserved and unhindered during this time? Perhaps it never occurred to the police that Aum might try to move, or worse use, any sarin they might have, but that level of ineptitude strikes me as utterly incomprehensible.

Any one entering or leaving any of the Aum facilities is subject to questioning that often lasts over an hour. All vehicles are subject to inspection. Yet even after the raids began, it seems Aum had little trouble moving things in and out of the compound. Police are now saying that thousands of "rifle parts" were removed en masse from the compounds and dumped in reservoirs after the raids had started.

The search for Asahara is equally questionable. Asahara was believed to have left the compound shortly before the raids began. The press, not the police, were the ones to pick up his trail when they spotted his motorcade at a Shinjuku hotel. The police dragged their feet in investigating the matter, and not too surprisingly, discovered no leads. Despite this new information, the police continued their intense search for Asahara in Ishikawa -- reputedly solely on the grounds of an anonymous tip that a figure resembling Asahara was seen in a car on the outskirts of Kanazawa. Asahara was found inside the Aum compound which means that if he indeed left it, not only did he manage to get by all the police checkpoints and re-enter the compound, but he had confidence enough to try it.

Follow the Money

This was deep throat's advice on unraveling America's Watergate scandal, and I believe that it is appropriate in Japan as well. I think that a look at Aum's books would prove very enlightening, and it seems that I am not alone. Japan's Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura called for an examination of Aum's finances, but he was rebuffed by police who are unwilling to disclose the information even to those who have the proper jurisdiction. He acquiesced to police desires saying that The National Tax Administration Agency would cooperate fully with the police. There will be no investigation.

For all the mystery about Aum's money, one this is perfectly clear: there was far too much of it. Hideo Murai claimed assets of over 100 billion yen (US$1.2 billion), and even the most conservative estimates are in the 20 - 30 billion yen range. According to both police and Aum, donations from members was Aum's sole source of income. It is well known that Aum followers were required to donate all of their belongings when they became priests. While Aum claimed a membership of around 10,000, there are only around 1,300 priests. This means that even at the most conservative estimates Aum's assets amount to around 20 million yen ($235,000) for every priest in the organization and could easily be 70 million ($824,000) or more per priest. Aum recruited mostly students, who even in affluent Japan simply do not have this kind of money.

The finance-by-donation claims become even more preposterous when we take a look at some of Aum's expenses. Aum Shinri Kyo ran dozens of businesses all over Japan, some of them employing over 100 non-Aum members, and none of them, it seems, making money. In fact, it seems that Aum had no intention of making any money with these companies. They were set up as fronts to either recruit members or to procure certain items without arousing suspicion. Aum was also funneling well over 10 million yen ($118,000) a month into its overseas operations. Over the past six years, hundreds of billions of yen (billions of US dollars) have passed through Aum's coffers. The assertion that this kind of money could come from member donations, no matter how forcibly sought, is patently absurd. Aum clearly had another source of income.

A clue may lie in a fact that emerged in the first few days of the investigation, but has become little more than a footnote. When police raided Aum's Kamikuishiki compound, they found over 700 million yen ($8.24 million) in cash and 10 unassayed gold bars. The gold is particularly significant. Before gold ingot that can be bought or sold, it must be assayed and stamped with its weight, purity and assayer. Under normal circumstances one would have to be extremely foolish to purchase a bar that had not been so marked, but assaying marks permit the bar to be traced. These bars were not marked, so it seems the illicit trail ends right were it begins. It is, however, interesting that former LDP king-maker Shin Kanemaru was found to be in possession of quite a few identical gold bars. This is easily dismissed as coincidence until one recalls that Yamanashi was Kanemaru's constituency.

Without being able to examine the actual records, the source of Aum's wealth may never come to light. However, in his recent book Hamako's Emergency Statement, former Diet member Koichi Hamada explains that both Toshio Yamaguchi of Shinshinto and Shintaro Ishihara funneled a lot of money into Aum Shinri Kyo although neither one was a member. Ishihara resigned his seat shortly after the police raids on Aum began. Hamada says that a third conservative politician, whom he does not name, was responsible for introducing Aum leaders to ranking Russian officials. The mainstream media, of course is being "responsible" and completely ignoring the connections to Aum and their implications.