Subway passengers wait to receive medical attention after inhaling a nerve gas in Tokyo's metro system on March 20, 1995.


  • Police use fingerprints to positively identify the suspect
  • They take him into custody in front of a comic book store after a tip-off
  • Members of a cult have been found responsible for the 1995 nerve gas attack
  • Thirteen people died after the gas was released in the Tokyo subway



Tokyo (CNN) -- Japanese authorities arrested the last fugitive suspected in a deadly 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway, police said Friday.
He was caught in front of a comic book cafe in Tokyo after its staff alerted police of the presence of a man resembling the suspect.
A fingerprint test positively identified the man as Katsuya Takahashi, 54, the only suspect in the gas attack case who remained at large, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police said.
Takahashi is being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in relation to the attack, according to the spokesman.
During the morning rush-hour in March 1995, members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult released sarin gas that led to the deaths of 13 people and sickened more than 5,500 commuters.
Thousands of police have been on the lookout for the suspect. Last week, police apprehended another member of the doomsday cult.
More than 200 members of the cult were convicted after the gas attack. Thirteen, including Shoko Asahara, the cult's blind guru, were sentenced to death. However, no one has been executed.
The cult claims to be a benign religious group, but at the height of its activities in the 1990s, it preached the world was coming to an end and it must arm itself to prepare for various calamities.