Inoue says Joyu knew about sarin gas production

Yomiuri Shimbun, February 9, 2000

Yoshihiro Inoue, "intelligence minister" of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, has testified in court that Fumihiro Joyu, a senior member of Aum who was recently released from prison after serving out a criminal sentence, knew in 1993 that the group had produced sarin.

The deadly nerve gas was used in the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway system, one of the 10 charges for which prosecutors have been demanding the death

sentence for Inoue. Inoue, 30, appeared in the Tokyo District Court on Monday as a witness for both the prosecution and defense in the trial of Toshiyasu Ouchi, 47, a former senior member of the cult's Russian branch.

According to his testimony, Inoue visited Moscow in 1993 as the bodyguard of the cult's founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, also known as Shoko Asahara, who gave a series of lectures in Russia. During the trip, Matsumoto told Joyu, then head of the Russian branch, that the group had succeeded in synthesizing sarin, Inoue said.

Joyu was also informed about the cult's abortive attack on Daisaku Ikeda, the honorary chairman of the lay Buddhist organi