Tokyo, Sept. 7 -- The guru and four members of a cult already indicted for a lethal gas attack on Tokyo subways in late March have been rearrested for an earlier killing, Japanese police said Thursday. Cult leader Shoko Asahara and the other Aum Supreme Truth followers, already in police custody in connection with several other crimes, were additionally charged on suspicion of murder in the deaths of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and infant son. 'I have nothing to say,' Asahara told investigators after he was rearrested for the killing of the Sakamoto family, police said. The four other cultists were Kiyohide Hayakawa, Tomomasa Nakagawa, Tomomitsu Niimi and Satoru Hashimoto, all senior members of the group. Cult members have confessed that guru Asahara summoned six members to cult headquarters two days before the Sakamotos disappeared and ordered that the family be killed, police said. The discovery of grisly evidence was made Wednesday. Police uncovered the bones of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his wife, Satoko, although they have yet to unearth the remains of the couple's one-year old son Tatsuhiko. Sakamoto, then 33, was involved in a legal case against Aum when he and his family disappeared in November 1989. The family lived in Yokohama, 10 miles (16 km) west of Tokyo. The search for the child's body started again early Thursday morning in marshy ground in the suburbs of Omachi, Nagano Prefecture, in central Japan. The police action Thursday followed the overnight arrest of cult member Kazuaki Okazaki, 34, a former cult driver who reportedly witnessed the murders.
Okazaki joined the cult in 1986 but quit in February 1990 during its campaign for the House of Representatives after fleeing with 230 million yen ($2.35 million) in campaign funds. Okazaki then went on a letter-writing campaign, accusing the cult of killing the Sakamoto family. His tactics apparently worked because the cult paid Okazaki 8 million yen ($81,633) in hush money upon his exit, police sources said. It was the confession of Okazaki that led authorities to the burial sites, police said. The discovery of physical evidence should strengthen the legal case against the sect, media observers said. According to police, senior cult member Hideo Murai, who was stabbed to death by an assassin in April, climbed down into the graves and smashed in the teeth of the bodies before the graves were covered. Apparently obsessed with erasing all possible traces of identification, Aum members later had their fingerprints removed by surgery and by pressing their fingertips against hot frying pans, Japanese media reported. The trial of Aum follower Rira Hayashi began in Tokyo District Court Thursday for allegedly operating on cultist Takeshi Matsumoto to remove his fingerprints. Matsumoto was arrested by police for the alleged abduction and murder of notary clerk Kiyoshi Kariya in February 1995. Police saie cult members confessed that Kariya was killed with an injection administered by Aum doctor Ikuo Hayashi, and that Kariya's corpse was burned at the cult complex near Mt. Fuji using a large microwave device. Dozens of cult members have been indicted for attempted murder and murder in connection with these incidents, as well as for two lethal gas attacks, one on the Tokyo subway system that killed 11 and sickened over 5,500 in late March. 'The series of Aum-related incidents have created a great deal of social anxiety,' said Chief Cabinet Secretary Koken Nosaka. 'We have to make all possible efforts to wipe away such unrest.'
