was a former Aum Shinrikyo leader and terrorist who was executed in Japan in 2018. He was responsible for coordinating the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995. His holy name was Aananda and his stage in the cult was Master Shogo.
Biography
Inoue was born on December 28, 1969, in Ukyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan. During his childhood, he liked documentary programs and was interested in the problems of poverty and dog killing in the world. His father was a serious person, but he did not feel at home, and he and his wife often quarreled. His mother even attempted suicide once. After studying martial arts, yoga, and Agon Shu, in 1986, when he was a sophomore in high school, he attended the Aum Shinzen no Kai's Tanzawa Seminar. He was impressed by Shoko Asahara and felt that Asahara was like an ideal parent.
In February 1988, he appeared with Aum members in NHK's "Ohayo Journal" ("Mysterious" Young People in the Midst of Changing Religious Consciousness). In March of the same year, he graduated from the private Rakunan High School in Kyoto. Inoue wanted to be ordained immediately, but after negotiations between his parents and Asahara, his parents decided that he would be ordained after leaving university, and he used a recommendation to enter the Faculty of Law at Nippon Bunka University. He also worked as a delivery rider for "Aum's Bento Shop". Eventually, under Asahara's direction, he dropped out of college in the first semester of his freshman year and became a Buddhist priest, and his mother also became an Aum lay follower.
In 1989, he was certified by Asahara to have attained Kundalini Yoga and became a Grand Master. He was involved in the illegal line of Vajrayana since the time of the Ishigaki Island Seminar in 1990. It is said that he once learned wiretapping techniques from a private detective, Shigeharu Mukawa. He was involved in a series of Aum Shinrikyo cases, including the attack on a parking lot owner, the murder of a company employee, the attack on a victim's association president, the arrest and confinement death of the notary public's office manager, and the sarin gas attack on the subway. He was also involved in the Shinjuku Station cyanide gas incident and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government parcel bombing as the ringleader. He was promoted to the rank of Shogo Guru in a notice issued by the Venerable Master three days before the sarin gas attack.
He was specially wanted for the arrest and confinement death of the notary public's office manager. On May 15, 1995, he was questioned in Akikawa City (now Akiruno City) by a police car pursuing an Aum vehicle, and was taken to the Gokaichi Police Station for a fake driver's license. The interrogator did not seem to know who he was, and was surprised when he honestly told him that his name was Inoue. After that, a policeman rushed in and deliberately bumped into Inoue, interfering with his fall, and arrested him.
In the car in which he was riding, a substance that was used as a raw material for explosives in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government parcel bombing and the bombing of Shimada Yumi's house was discovered.
On December 26, 1995, he sent a message to Samana and his congregation urging them to leave Aum Shinrikyō. In the message, he stated that his body was still bound by the criminal acts he had committed in the name of the "Guru's Will," but that his mind was much freer than before. He also stated that the various notions he had cultivated in the cult were falling apart, that there was no need for a "final liberator" or "savior" if he wanted to attain awakening, that there was no need for a "Venerable Master," a "Righteous Master," a "Samana," or any other such rank, and that there was no need for any cult whatsoever.
Trial
During the trial, he showed remorse for the Aum Affair, but he tended to trivialize and shift the blame by claiming that he was not heavily used, which raised questions about the credibility of his testimony. The public treated him as a traitor and he was bashed not only by Aum but also by critics and journalists, but his attitude did not change.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Tokyo District Court on June 6, 2000, after pleading guilty to the charge of arrest and confinement but not to the charge of arrest and confinement manslaughter in the case of the Meguro Notary Public Office clerk, and remaining in a liaison role in the sarin gas attack. This was the first time in the Aum Shinrikyo case that a sentence of life imprisonment was handed down in response to a request for the death penalty.