Kamiku Isshiki, Friday.
JAPANESE police raided a large complex of the Aum Shinri Kyo sect in
this village west of Tokyo for a third successive day today.
Television reports said police also raided the Osaka branch office of
the Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth sect) in western Japan.
Yesterday a thousand police in chemical-warfare gear mounted a second
raid on a hideaway of the secretive religious sect and found ingredients
for the nerve gas used in the deadly attack on Tokyo's underground.
Police called off their search of the complex in the small village of
Kamiku Isshiki yesterday because the chemicals were so dangerous, but
had said they would return.
The horrific attack on the underground system killed 10 people and
injured 5500, and police sources confirmed yesterday that the sect was
suspected of being involved.
Police said they seized sodium fluoride and phosphorus trichloride --
both ingredients of the nerve gas sarin -- in a second day of raids on
the complex at the foot of Mount Fuji.
The sect has denied involvement in the gas attack and has accused the
government of framing it. A sect spokesman said the chemicals were not
used to make lethal gases but for welding and processing computer chips.
However Hidenori Watanabe, a chemistry professor at Tokyo University,
said: ''The discovery of these two chemicals greatly increases chances
they were trying to produce or already had produced sarin. The two
substances are the main ingredients of sarin.''
The Kamiku Isshiki complex includes several groups of coarse
prefabricated buildings, some made of corrugated metal and some of blue
fibreglass.
The building nearest to the entrance has a sign in English: ''Welcome
Victory''.
Police said they found huge amounts of other dangerous chemicals such
as cyanide compounds, packed in heavy-duty paper, some of which were
ripped open.
The bags were too dangerous to move so police suspended the raid until
army chemical experts could be called in.
Loads of blue plastic canisters and piles of rubble could be seen
yesterday, along with building materials including steel girders, which
sect members apparently used to build a crude barricade on Tuesday night
before the first raid.
The search proceeded without resistance. Some followers, with shaved
heads, stood watching the police.--Reuter.
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