"There are many sophisticated people among the members," said Yoshiro Ito, a lawyer who has represented parents trying to recover their children from the sect. "They come from elite families."
As a result, Aum is not a one-man operation. Mr. Asahara's deputies are subordinate but still powerful, and there is no doubt about their intellectual prowess.
Aum's chief spokesman, for example, is a 35-year-old lawyer named Yoshinobu Aoyama, a graduate of prestigious Kyoto University. He passed the national exam for lawyers as a college junior, becoming the youngest person in his class to do so.
