Hirata 'was not told about Kariya plans'

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Makoto Hirata, the former Aum Supreme Truth cult member arrested Sunday for his alleged involvement in the 1995 abduction of a Tokyo notary public, said he was unaware of the kidnapping until he saw other members commit the crime, according to investigative sources.

After nearly 17 years on the run, Hirata is suspected to have been involved in the Feb. 28, 1995, abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya, then 68, the chief clerk at a notary public office in Meguro Ward, Tokyo. According to investigative sources, Hirata, 46, said that he "did not know [they] would be abducting someone before seeing other members force Kariya into a van."

To substantiate Hirata's statement, the Metropolitan Police Department will start interviewing other former senior cult members with finalized sentences, such as Yoshihiro Inoue, 42, a death row inmate also involved in the Kariya case.

After abducting Kariya in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, Hirata allegedly drove him to the cult's facility in the village of Kamikuishiki, Yamanashi Prefecture--now part of the town of Fuji-Kawaguchiko--where the clerk died after receiving a massive dose of anesthetics, according to the MPD.

During the interrogation following his arrest, sources said Hirata told police that on the day of the abduction, he "just drove the car carrying Inoue and didn't know what he would do."

When arriving at Kariya's planned abduction site, Hirata asked another member about what would happen. "I was just told, 'You haven't been informed? Then you shouldn't know,'" he was quoted as saying.

Then, Hirata allegedly saw Noboru Nakamura and other cult members force Kariya into the van. "That was when I understood we were abducting someone. The scene made me so upset," he was quoted as saying. Nakamura, 44, has been serving a term of life imprisonment.

A few days after the abduction, Hirata asked Tomomasa Nakagawa, 49--yet another accomplice in the case and now a death row inmate--what had happened to Kariya. "I was told, 'He isn't here anymore,'" he recalled, according to investigative sources.