The Matsumoto incident was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo in Matsumoto, Japan, in Nagano prefecture, on the evening of June 27 and the morning of June 28, 1994.
Eight people were killed[1] [2] and over 200 were harmed by sarin gas that was released from several sites in the Kaichi Heights neighborhood. The first calls to emergency officials occurred around 11:00 p.m.; by 4:15 a.m. the following morning, six people had died from the poison. On July 3, officials announced that the toxic agent had been identified as sarin by GC/MS. The dead included Yutaka Kobayashi, a 23-old salaried worker, and Yasumoto, a 29-year old medical school student.[3]
After the incident, police focused their investigation on Yoshiyuki Kōno, whose wife was a victim put in a coma by the gas. It was discovered that Kōno had stored a large amount of pesticide in his residence. Despite the fact that sarin cannot be manufactured from pesticides, Kōno was dubbed by the media "the Poison Gas Man" and received hate mail, death threats, and intense legal pressure.
After the attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, the blame was shifted to the cult Aum Shinrikyo. The police chief, on behalf of the police department and media, publicly apologized to Kōno. Kōno's wife died without waking from her coma in 2008.
The Matsumoto incident preceded the better-known attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Several Aum Shinrikyo members were found guilty of masterminding both incidents. Combined, the attacks resulted in 20 deaths and thousands of hospitalizations or outpatient treatment. The main motive for the Matsumoto incident was trying to kill the judges handling fraud charges against Aum brought by land owners in Matsumoto, in order to prevent the court from releasing the scheduled verdict. Aum had also used Matsumoto as a test for their future plans to release the gas in Tokyo.
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