Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the Subway Sarin Incident , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995. In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on several lines of the Tokyo Metro, killing thirteen people, severely injuring fifty and causing temporary vision problems for nearly a thousand others. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatachō, home to the Japanese government. It is the most serious attack to occur in Japan since the... end of World War II. Aum Shinrikyo is the former name of a controversial group now known as Aleph. The Japanese police initially reported that the attack was the cult's way of hastening an apocalypse. The prosecution said that it was an attempt to bring down the government and install Shoko Asahara, the group's founder, as the "emperor" of Japan. Asahara's defense team claimed that certain senior members of the group independently planned the attack, but their motives for this were left unexplained.
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