Mr. Asahara denies any involvement in the subway attack on Monday. The police have not made public any evidence that he was responsible, but the police raids and discovery of chemical ingredients of nerve gas suggest that Aum is a prime suspect.
In any case, for a spiritual leader, Mr. Asahara has shown a remarkable fascination with the temporal and the chemical. And his speeches have often mentioned such nerve gases as sarin, which the police say was used in the subway attack.
"It has become clear now that my first death will be caused by something like a poison gas such as sarin," Mr. Asahara said a year ago, without explaining what he meant by his "first death." At that time, almost nobody in Japan had heard of sarin. The Beginnings A Younger Son Of a Poor Family
