The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (21 page)

On October 21, 1995, four plainclothes police arrested a colleague of Telledin, Cesar Antonio Fernandez, 24, outside a Gualeguaychu teacher training college.

On October 30, 1995, Judge Galeano issued an arrest warrant for Carlos Irigoytia for his links with the AIMA detainees. Irigoytia was arrested in his home. Later that day, police arrested Roberto Valdez, 34, who was linked to Telledin and Alejandro Victor Monjo. Galeano ordered the release of Rodolfo Setau and Antonio Quiroga due to lack of evidence that they were involved with Telledin and Monjo in obtaining the van. Setau had been held since October 19, 1995. An agent for Alejandro Automotores, Setau was suspected of being Monjo's direct link to Telledin. Quiroga also worked for the car firm.

On November 2, 1995, Judge Galeano indicted on charges of unlawful association all those who had been held in the AIMA case. He declined to remand anyone but Telledin into custody. Monjo, Gabriel Melli, Edgardo Yema, Marcelo Delacour, Jaimes, Perez, and Fernandez were set free. Pablo Ibanez was indicted for possession of drugs.

In 1996, former chief inspector Juan Jose Ribelli and two other senior provincial police officers were charged with assisting in the bombing. Local press reported that Ribelli received a $2.5 million payment a week before the attack.

On July 14, 1996, Judge Galeano heard testimony of two deputy police superintendents (Raul Idilio Ibarra and Antastasio Ireneo Leal) and two former police inspectors (Barreda and Barreiro) who allegedly sold the car bomb.

On September 24, 2001, the trial began of 20 people charged with helping to arrange the bombing. On September 2, 2004, a federal court in Buenos Aires acquitted five men of being accessories in the case, clearing four former provincial police officers and a former used car salesman.

On March 8, 2003, Judge Galeano indicted four Iranian diplomats: Ali Fallahian, serving as Minister of Security and Intelligence when the attack occurred; Mohsen Rabbani, Iranian cultural attaché; Ali Akbar Parvaresh, former minister of education and former speaker of the Iranian Majlis; and Ali Balesh Abadi, former embassy spokesman. On October 25, 2006, Argentine prosecutors asked for the arrest of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for plotting the bombing.

On May 20, 2009, Argentina issued an international arrest warrant for Samuel Salman el-Reda, a Colombian of Lebanese descent.

The case remains open.

Overview:
While much of the speculative literature on the future of terrorism worries about the use by terrorists of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials, the overwhelming number of international and domestic attacks have involved conventional methods. Reasons for this hesitancy to move into a new type of weapon have included lack of skill, fear of scoring “own goals,” likely public revulsion at the deaths of thousands, and difficulty of acquiring and weaponizing the materials. These limitations were not a concern for Aum Shin Rikyo, a millennial cult that attracted tens of thousands of adherents in the 1990s throughout Asia and Russia.

Aum Shin Rikyo's membership included sophisticated chemists, biologists, and nuclear engineers, who were encouraged to experiment with the use of all of these potential weapons. The group conducted tests, some affecting, some directly against, the local population. On July 2, 1993, more than 100 residents of the Koto district of Tokyo complained of noxious white fumes coming from buildings owned by the group. On June 27, 1994, seven people died from a sarin attack in the resort city of Matsumoto, 125 miles northwest of Tokyo. At least 264 people were hospitalized. A week later, residents of the small village of Kamikuishiki, near Mount Fuji south of Matsumoto, had the same symptoms, although all recovered. On September 1, 1994, more than 230 people in seven towns in Nara State suffered rashes and eye irritation from fumes. Authorities found a by-product of sarin in Kamikuishiki in December 1994.

Aum upped the ante for all terrorists in March 1995, when it attempted to kill thousands via a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Twelve commuters died and 5,511 people were hospitalized. Strict Japanese laws regarding the rights of religious groups, even those advocating violence, hampered the authorities' investigation and response to the case, but eventually those responsible were brought to justice.

Incident:
On March 20, 1995, Aum Shin Rikyo (Aum Supreme Truth), a fringe cult headquartered in Japan, simultaneously released sarin gas into 6 trains involving 16 substations of the Tokyo subway system during the 8:00
A.M.
rush hour, killing 12 and injuring 5,511 people. Affected stations included Nakano-Sakane, Kasumigaseki, Tsukiji, Kamiyacho, Hongosanchome, Kodenmacho, Hibiya, Marunouchi, Ebisu, Yotsuya-Sanchome, Shinkoenji, Higashi Koenji, Ogikubo, Nakano Fujimicho, Hatchobori, Kayabacho, Ochanomizu, Kokkaigijidomae, Akasaka Mitsuke, Ningyocho, Korakuen, and Chiyoda. The three affected subway lines (Hibiya, Marunouchi, and Chiyoda) crossed each other at the Kasumigaseki terminus, site of the headquarters of several Japanese national government ministries.

Sarin's chemical name is isopropyl methyl phosphoro fluoridate. It was developed by the Nazis in the late 1930s, but apparently not used by them in battle. It is one of the least persistent nerve agents, dispersing rapidly. It is fairly simple to manufacture.

The cult was led by Shoko Asahara, 40, self-described Venerated Master, who in 1985 wrote that he had conducted successful antigravity experiments. He had failed as an acupuncturist and health tonic salesman. During his career, he had railed against the Japanese military and the United States, predicted that the world would end in 1997, and said that it was now “time for death,” without specifying if it was for himself, his followers, or Tokyo subway riders. Asahara was born Chizuo Matsumoto, the fourth son of a tatami mat maker. He was jailed in 1982 for selling counterfeit medicines. He founded three cults. In 1982, he and his wife created the Heavenly Blessing Association. He next tried the Aum Divine Wizard Association, claiming that Buddhist principles would permit him to fly. In 1987, he came out with the Aum Supreme Truth, in which he praised the Hindu god Shiva (god of destruction and renewal), Buddhist saints, and Adolf Hitler. The cult has branches in the United States, Germany, Russia, and Sri Lanka.

On March 22, 1995, police raided Aum facilities in Kamikuishiki Village, Yamanashi Prefecture, and found a large quantity of peptone, used to culture germs. Police found germ-culture equipment, electron microscopes, and other experimental equipment used in germ research. The cult had purchased large quantities of botulinus bacillus. The next day, Japanese police seized huge supplies of sarin precursor chemicals, including phosphorous trichloride and sodium fluoride. Police also found atropine, a chemical agent antidote. Police found 22 pounds of gold ingots and $7 million in cash at Asahara's mountain stronghold. Raids
by 2,500 police at two dozen of their installations turned up gas masks and acetonitrile, which can dilute sarin. Police also found a Russian chemical agent detector and a Russian MI-17 helicopter capable of carrying 30 people. Fifty malnourished, drugged people, apparently being held against their will, were freed by police. Some were Aum members and refused medical assistance. Five people were arrested.

One day before the subway incident, leaflets publicizing Asahara's book
Disasters are Approaching the Country Where the Sun Rises
, which hinted at the Tokyo gas attack, were distributed in the Ginza shopping area. Three months after the Matsumoto attack, a threatening letter sent to news organizations hinted at the use of organic solvents in the subway.

On March 27, 1995, police found a hidden chemical lab behind a secret door behind a huge Hindu statue of Shiva in the group's main building near Mount Fuji. Police found 40 kinds of chemicals, including those used to make sarin and tabun, glycerine compounds for explosives, and drugs precursors.

On March 29, 1995, Japanese police searching the Mount Fuji site found 160 barrels of peptone, suggesting that the Aum was also experimenting with biological warfare agents. Police had earlier discovered a powerful ventilation system that could have removed toxic gases and agents during the experiments. Police found an incubator and a library of 300 books on bacteriological research. Police discovered empty syringe vials of sarin. Police said that the sarin production facilities were “seemingly larger, more sophisticated, and of better quality than Iraq's chemical gas plants, and are good enough to produce highly-purified sarin,” according to the
Mainichi Shimbun.

By April 1, 1995, police had confiscated 650 drums filled with enough chemicals to make 5.6 tons of sarin. The group had purchased huge quantities of a sarin antidote from a Tokyo hospital.

On April 1, 1995, police found a major heavy machine maker's classified document on uranium enrichment technology among the belongings of an Aum member who had been arrested in Shiga Prefecture.

On April 13, 1995, police arrested Tomomitsu Nimii, Aum's home affairs minister, on suspicion of kidnapping a nurse who had tried to leave the cult. During the previous week, police had arrested the ministers of defense, finance, and treatment, the latter who drugged dissenters into submission.

On April 14, 1995, police arrested Masanobu Iwao, 35, for breaking and entering the facility of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on November 6, 1994. The facility is the firm's major laser research lab. Aum was allegedly interested in laser weapons.

On April 15, 1995, thousands of police officers raided 130 Aum buildings, removing 53 children from the group's main compound. Many of the children, ages 3–14, were wearing head gear with wires that Aum members claimed sent brain waves from Asahara. Some of the children were
malnourished; eight were hospitalized. Police found a Russian military helicopter, gun-making materials, biological warfare supplies, and chemical warfare plants.

On April 19, 1995, police arrested Kiyohide Hayakawa, 45, Aum “construction minister” and allegedly number two in Aum. He reportedly was involved in attempts to purchase six Russian tanks.

Police at Los Angeles International Airport apprehended two Japanese Aum members a few days before Easter, who were carrying information on sarin manufacture. Police believed they were planning an attack on Disneyland.

Kyodo
reported that 58 present and former members of the Self-Defense Forces had been Aum members. On May 25, 1995, police announced the arrest of Aum adherent Sgt. Tatsuya Toyama, on charges of trespassing at a research facility operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan's largest defense contractor.

On April 23, 1995, Hideo Murai, Aum's minister for science and technology, was stabbed to death in front of Aum's Tokyo headquarters by a man who claimed to be a rightist.

On April 26, 1995, police arrested Masami Tsuchiya, 30, Aum's top chemist. Tsuchiya told police that he produced sarin.

On April 28, 1995, the Japanese Self Defense Force announced that two army sergeants who are Aum members had tipped off the cult's leaders in advance of the March 22, 1995, raid, permitting group members to escape with incriminating evidence. One of the sergeants also admitted throwing a Molotov cocktail at the group's Tokyo office in an attempt to distract police and win public sympathy.

On May 6, 1995, guards thwarted a cyanide gas attack in a Tokyo subway station, defusing a device in a restroom.

Australia announced on May 11, 1995, that Aum had tested sarin on livestock at a sheep ranch in Western Australia. Police found sarin residue in the carcasses of 24 sheep and on the soil of a 48,000 acre sheep ranch that Aum had purchased in 1993.

By May 14, 1995, police had arrested 200 Aum members.

On May 16, 1995, police arrested Asahara, who was hiding with his wife, Tomoko Matsumoto, 36, and 6 children at the Mount Fuji complex. Police had to search for three hours in the underground tunnels and secret passages before finding him in his meditation chamber.

Prosecutors indicted Asahara and six followers on murder charges on June 6, 1995, saying that he masterminded the attacks. Prosecutors said that the Aum members packed the sarin into 11 sealed plastic bags and used umbrellas with sharpened tips to puncture them in five subway cars. Another nine Aum members were indicted on charges of “preparation for murder” for building the chemical plants where sarin was produced.

On June 6, 1995, the government announced that it would move to disband Aum, revoke its status as a religious corporation, and not permit it
to enjoy tax advantages or own property in its own name. It would still be able to make converts and hold meetings.

On June 14, 1995, Asahara was also charged with ordering the strangling of Kotaro Ochida, 29, a pharmacist in a cult hospital. He was killed by Hideaki Yasuda, a former Aum member, in January 1994. Yasuda told police that Asahara and 10 other senior cult members witnessed the strangling at the commune at Kamikuishiki.

On July 5, 1995, Asahara was charged with ordering the production of LSD, truth serums, amphetamines, and other illegal drugs.

On October 30, 1995, a Tokyo District Court judge ruled that the cult must forfeit its status as a religious corporation, which could lead to a liquidator selling the group's holdings, estimated at between $300 million and $1 billion.

On October 31, 1995, U.S. Senator Sam Nunn reported that Aum tried to purchase material for nuclear and chemical weapons in the United States and Russia, and had developed numerous front companies. The cult tried to obtain a $500,000 laser system and 400 Israeli-made gas masks, along with Russian nuclear materials.

On December 4, 1995, Asahara was served a warrant for involvement in the VX gas murder of Osaka businessman Tadahito Hamaguchi, 28, on December 12, 1994.

On May 26, 1998, Ikuo Hayashi was sentenced to life in prison for murder. The same day, court testimony indicated that Aum had conducted at least nine germ attacks in the early 1990s in an effort to kill millions of people throughout Tokyo and thousands of American service people and their families at a nearby military base. The group sprayed pestilential microbes and germ toxins from rooftops and trucks at the Diet, the Imperial Palace, the surrounding city, and the U.S. base at Yokosuka. In June 1993, cult members sprayed anthrax from the top of their building, but no one became ill. The group also sprayed anthrax via a truck around central Tokyo and sprayed botulinum toxin in the Kasumigaseki Tokyo subway in 1995.