Police arrest fugitive in the gas attack, Japan-Globe and Mail

Japanese police Friday arrested the last fugitive suspected in attack by a doomsday cult deadly nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, 17 years ago: former leader's bodyguard, who worship was finally tracked down in a cafe of comics.

Katsuya Takahashi, 54, a former member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, was arrested on suspicion of murder, a Tokyo Police spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing the rules Department. An employee at the cafe in Tokyo had recognized him and called police, he said.
Mr. Takahashi admitted that he was when approached by the police.
The trail was cold for years, but warmed up after another fugitive from cult was arrested on 3 June. Thousands of officers had been chasing him across the capital, handing out fresh photos of suspicion and monitoring Hub Transport servers to prevent escape.
Mr. Takahashi, who had been a bodyguard of cult guru Shoko Asahara, was in Japan's most wanted list for his suspected role in the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, which killed 13 people and injured over 6,000. He presumably one of the members who released sarin onto a subway line to escape from the scene. He is also suspected in a 1995 kidnapping-murder cult-related, as well as a mail bomb that injured an employee of Tokyo City.
TV footage showed a huge crowd outside the Café, trying to catch a glimpse of the cult last fugitive. Public broadcaster NHK showed a thin, bespectacled Mr. Takahashi is pushed into a police car.
His appearance had changed over the years — in particular, trademark eyebrows have become much thinner. So the police had to wait while his fingerprints have been verified. He was arrested after being taken to a nearby police station, then transferred to police headquarters in Tokyo for interrogation, police said.
Police that he had been hidden in the Tokyo area under an assumed name. A security camera last week showed him trying to withdraw money from a Bank, shortly after which the fugitive has been arrested. Local Media have reported that he was working at a construction company, where he was known as a quiet and antisocial person who always wore a surgical mask.
Aum Shinrikyo had accumulated an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, conventional in anticipation of an apocalyptic showdown with the Government. Almost 200 of its members were convicted in the 1995 attack and dozens of other crimes. Thirteen, including Mr. Asahara, are on death row.
Makoto Hirata, charged in abduction murder 1995 as well as the subway attack, surrendered to the police on new year's day, stunning the nation. The fugitive arrested on 3 June, Naoko Kikuchi, is accused of helping to produce the sarin released in the subway group.
The cult, divided into two groups — each renamed Aleph and the circle of Rainbow light — once it had 10,000 members in Japan and claimed another 30,000 in Russia. Still has hundreds of members. The cult is under police surveillance and its current leaders have publicly disavowed Mr. Asahara