On November 5, 1989, Tsutsumi Sakamoto (坂本堤 ''Sakamoto Tsutsumi'' April 6, 1956 – November 5, 1989), a lawyer working on a

class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage Robot''), a 2002 e ...

lawsuit against

Aum Shinrikyo , better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been respo ...

, a

doomsday cult A doomsday cult is a cult that believes in apocalypticism and millenarianism, including both those that predict disaster and those that attempt to destroy the entire universe. Sociologist John Lofland coined the term ''doomsday cult'' in his 19 ...

in Japan, was murdered, along with his wife Satoko and his child Tatsuhiko, by perpetrators who broke into his apartment. Six years later, following the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway, the murderers were uncovered and it was established that the murderers had been members of Aum Shinrikyo at the time of the crime.

Tsutsumi Sakamoto

Tsutsumi was born in

Yokosuka, Kanagawa is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 373,797, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th-most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city is ...

. After graduating from Yokosuka High School, he entered

Tokyo University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

and graduated in law. He worked as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

until he passed the

bar exam A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction. Australia Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associat ...

in 1984 at age 27. He was a member of the Yokohama Bar Association. From 1987 he worked as a lawyer at Yokohama Law Offices. At the time of his murder, Sakamoto was known as an

anti-cult The anti-cult movement, abbreviated ACM and also known as the countercult movement, consists of various governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals that seek to raise awareness of religious groups that they consider to be ...

lawyer. He had previously successfully led a class-action suit against the

Unification Church The Unification Church () is a new religious movement, whose members are called Unificationists or sometimes informally Moonies. It was founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon in Seoul, South Korea, as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unificatio ...

on behalf of relatives of Unification Church members. In the suit the plaintiffs sued for assets transferred to the group, and for harm inflicted by worsened family relationships. A public relations campaign in which protesters demanded public attention to their cause was instrumental to Sakamoto's plan, and the Unification Church suffered a serious financial blow. By organizing a similar anti-Aum

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

campaign, Sakamoto apparently sought to demonstrate that Aum members, similar to members of the Unification Church, did not join the group voluntarily but were lured in by deception and were probably being held against their will by threats and manipulations. Furthermore, religious items were being sold at prices far greater than their market value, draining money out of the households of members (in a practice called spiritual sales). If a judgment was handed down in his clients' favor, Aum could be bankrupted, thus greatly weakening or destroying the group. In 1988, in order to pursue the class action suit, Sakamoto initiated the establishment of ''Aum Shinrikyo Higai Taisaku Bengodan'' ("Coalition of Help for those affected by Aum Shinrikyo"). This was later renamed: ''Aum Shinrikyo Higaisha-no-kai'' or "Aum Shinrikyo Victims' Association". The group still operated under this title . After Sakamoto's disappearance, lawyer Taro Takimoto took over most of his anti-Aum Shinrikyo legal activities.

Circumstances of the murder

In October 1989,

Tokyo Broadcasting System Television JORX-DTV (channel 6), branded as , is the flagship station of the Japan News Network in the Kantō region. It is owned-and-operated by , a subsidiary of TBS Holdings. TBS Television is one of the "five private broadcasters based in Tokyo." ...

(TBS) taped an interview with Sakamoto regarding his anti-

Aum ''Om'' (or ''Aum''; ; , ISO 15919: ''Ōṁ'') is a polysemous symbol representing a sacred sound, seed syllable, mantra, and invocation in Hinduism. Its written form is the most important symbol in the Hindu religion. It is the ess ...

efforts. However, the network secretly showed a video of the interview to Aum members without Sakamoto's knowledge, intentionally breaking its

protection of sources Source protection, sometimes also referred to as source confidentiality or in the U.S. as the reporter's privilege, is a right accorded to journalists under the laws of many countries, as well as under international law. It prohibits authorities, i ...

. Aum officials then pressured TBS to cancel the planned broadcast of the interview. Several days later, on November 3, 1989, several Aum Shinrikyo members, including Hideo Murai, chief scientist, Satoro Hashimoto, a

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; ...

master, Tomomasa Nakagawa and Kazuaki Okazaki drove to

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

, where Sakamoto lived. They carried a pouch with 14

hypodermic needle A hypodermic needle (from Greek Language, Greek ὑπο- (''hypo-'' = under), and δέρμα (''derma'' = skin)) is a very thin, hollow tube with one sharp tip. As one of the most important intravenous inventions in the field of drug admini ...

s and a supply of

potassium chloride Potassium chloride (KCl, or potassium salt) is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. It is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance. The solid dissolves readily in water, and its solutions have a sa ...

. According to court testimony provided by the perpetrators later, they planned to use the chemical substance to

kidnap Kidnapping or abduction is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will, and is a crime in many jurisdictions. Kidnapping may be accomplished by use of force or fear, or a victim may be enticed into confinement by frau ...

Sakamoto from Yokohama's

Shinkansen The , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. It was initially built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, to aid economic growth and development. Beyond lon ...

train station, but, contrary to expectations, he did not show up—it was a holiday (''Bunka no hi'', or "

Culture Day is a public holiday in Japan held annually on November 3 to promote culture, the arts, and academic endeavour. Festivities typically include art exhibitions, parades, and award ceremonies for distinguished artists and scholars. History Cultu ...

"), so he slept in with his family at home. At 3 a.m. on November 5, the group entered Sakamoto's apartment through an unlocked door. Tsutsumi Sakamoto was struck on the head with a hammer, injected with

, and strangled. His wife, Satoko Sakamoto (坂本都子 ''Sakamoto Satoko'', 29 years old) was beaten and injected with potassium chloride. Their infant son Tatsuhiko Sakamoto (坂本竜彦 ''Sakamoto Tatsuhiko'', 14 months old) was injected with the potassium chloride and then his face was covered with a cloth. The family's remains were placed in metal drums and hidden in three separate rural areas in three different prefectures (Tsutsumi in Niigata, Satoko in

Toyama Toyama may refer to: Places * Toyama Prefecture, a prefecture of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on the main Honshu island * Toyama (city), the capital city of Toyama Prefecture * Toyama Station, the main station of Toyama, Toyama * Toyama Sta ...

, and Tatsuhiko in Nagano) so that in case the bodies were uncovered, police might not link the three incidents. Their bed sheets were burned and the tools were dropped in the ocean. The victims' teeth were smashed to frustrate identification. Their bodies were not found until the perpetrators revealed the locations after they were captured in connection with the 1995 Tokyo subway attack. By the time police searched the areas in which the victims were placed, their bodies were reduced to bones.

Aftermath

As reported by

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

in 2015, the

Tokyo metropolitan police The , known locally as simply the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), is the prefectural police of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. Founded in 1874, the TMPD is the largest police force in Japan by number of officers, with a staff of more than 40,000 p ...

had received a tip that an

member was involved in the murder, and in 1991 launched an investigation into the

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

's facilities in the city. However, the investigation was shut down after two months due to the murder having been committed in

, outside of the jurisdiction of the Tokyo police. Evidence of Aum Shinrikyo's involvement in the murders was uncovered six years after the murder, after a number of senior followers were arrested on other charges, most notably in connection with the Tokyo subway attack. All of those implicated in the Sakamoto murders received death sentences. The court found that the murder was committed by order of the group's founder, Shoko Asahara, although not all of the perpetrators testified to this effect, and Asahara denied involvement. Asahara's legal team claims that blaming him is an attempt to shift personal responsibility to a higher authority. After the culpability of

Tokyo Broadcasting System (formerly ) is a Japanese media and licensed broadcasting holding company. It is the parent company of the television network TBS Television and radio network TBS Radio. It has a 28-affiliate television network called Japan News Network, as ...

in the murders was uncovered, the network was swamped with complaints and eventually the company's president resigned.

Trial, conviction, and sentencing of the perpetrators

Following the Tokyo attacks, police charged Aum members Hideo Murai, Tomomasa Nakagawa, Kazuaki Okazaki, and Satoro Hashimoto with the murder of the Sakamoto family. Okazaki's trial was the shortest, as he pleaded guilty to all charges. Murai never made it to trial, as he was stabbed to death by a yakuza-affiliated

Zainichi Korean () are ethnic Koreans who immigrated to Japan before 1945 and are citizens or permanent residents of Japan, or who are descendants of those immigrants. They are a group distinct from South Korean nationals who have immigrated to Japan since t ...

assassin in April 1995 as he was being transferred by police. Okazaki was found guilty in October 1998.Johnathan Watts, "Doomsday cult killer to hang," ''The Guardian'' (London), 24 October 1998. In 2000, the last two perpetrators, Nakagawa and Hashimoto, were convicted of the murders. On July 25, 2000, Okazaki, Nakagawa, and Hashimoto were sentenced to death. On 28 July 2000, Kiyohide Hayakawa was sentenced to death for his role in the murder. In 2017, Nakagawa published a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

from prison in which he renounced his Aum beliefs, apologized to the families of his victims, and referred to Aum leader Shoko Asahara as a "criminal". Following the 2017

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

Kim Jong-nam Kim Jong-nam (, ; 10 May 1971 – 13 February 2017) was the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. From roughly 1994 to 2001, he was considered the heir apparent to his father. He was thought to have fallen out of favor after embarras ...

(the half-brother of

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

n leader

Kim Jong-un Kim Jong Un (born 8 January 1983 or 1984) is a North Korean politician and dictator who has served as supreme leader of North Korea since 2011 and general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is the third son of Kim ...

), Nakagawa wrote a letter from prison in which he expressed his belief that Kim Jong-nam had died from VX poisoning, quantities of which Aum Shinrikyo had produced and used in the 1990s. Nakagawa was executed on July 6, 2018, while Okazaki and Hashimoto were executed on July 26, 2018 (18 years and one day after being sentenced).

References

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...

, '' Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche'', Vintage, , LoC BP605.O88.M8613

External links