UNDER ARREST -- FINALLY

By EDWARD W. DESMOND/TOKYO

When they finally found Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, he was hiding in the dark, lying alone in a space not much bigger than a coffin. For four hours police had searched the unlighted interior of Satian No. 6 (satian is Sanskrit for "supreme truth"), a warehouse in an Aum compound near Mount Fuji. Then an investigator tapped on a wall and found a hollow spot. Police cut in with an electric saw and discovered a bearded man in a deep pink pajama suit lying in a compartment about 10 ft. long and 3 ft. high. With him were a cassette player, some medicine and a bag containing $106,000 in cash. Followers had apparently sealed Asahara into the hiding place a day or so earlier when it became clear his arrest was imminent.

"Are you Shoko Asahara?" asked the police. "Yes, I am," Asahara replied. "What are you doing here?" they inquired. "I've been here for two days meditating and recuperating," he said. When police started to climb in to remove him, he warned them off. "I'll come out myself. No one, not even my followers, is allowed to touch me."

The police hustled Asahara into a van while hundreds of photographers and reporters looked on. The press had been camped out in front of the compound for hours. The van sped in a small convoy on the highway back to Tokyo with news helicopters in pursuit. During the drive, officials informed Asahara that he was under arrest in connection with the murder of 12 people killed in the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway on March 20. Asahara responded, "Could a blind man like me possibly do such a thing?"

The arrest brought the first spell of relief from the fear that had gripped Japan for two months. The nation had been holding its breath, worried that another horror would occur before police built their case against Aum. On May 5 a cleaning woman in Tokyo's sprawling Shinjuku station found a hydrogen-cyanide gas bomb before it went off. The device had been placed near a ventilation duct that would have spread the gas quickly. It was potent enough to have killed 10,000 people.

For two months police swept through the extensive offices, factories and businesses of Aum in search of evidence and arrested dozens of lower-ranking members on a variety of minor charges. They discovered that Aum had as many as 30,000 members in Russia, where the group bought chemical-weapons detection gear, and owned a ranch in Australia, where the sarin gas was tested on sheep. For fear of being seen to be treading on religious freedom, Japanese police were reluctant to question key Aum figures until they had clinching evidence of their guilt. However, after Hideo Murai, a top Aum science official, was murdered on April 23, possibly to silence him, authorities decided to take in other key leaders linked to sarin production.

The big break came after the arrest on April 26 of Masami Tsuchiya, 30, a doctoral student in organic chemistry who police said led the effort to make sarin. Charged initially with the minor crime of helping other Aum members evade arrest, he was extensively questioned about the sarin attack. In consultation with a psychologist, police found they were able to break Tsuchiya quickly, despite his reputation as a hard-core Aum member. Shoko Egawa, an expert on the cult, offered an explanation: "The best-educated members were really prized by Asahara and did not go through the same indoctrination that the others did. Once someone as honest and serious as Tsuchiya was out from under Asahara's control, it was easy to get him to confess."

According to press reports based on police leaks, Tsuchiya admitted he had concocted sarin just before the subway attack. He added that while only 10 liters were used in the Tokyo attack, he had made "several tens of liters" of sarin in a secret laboratory behind Satian No. 7, the huge Aum-owned factory compound also near Mount Fuji that had been the object of police searches in March. He destroyed the rest of the sarin, he claims, to remove evidence.

It was Dr. Ikuo Hayashi, 48, Aum's chief medical official, who implicated Asahara. Hayashi, who was arrested for illegally confining an Aum member at one of the rural compounds, reportedly confessed he was among the 10 Aum operatives who had placed sarin on the trains. The order, he said, came specifically from Asahara. The third big catch was Yoshihiro Inoue, 25, who is suspected of organizing the attack. Police caught him in western Tokyo last week and discovered bombmaking explosives in his car, and maps and timetables for the city's subway system at his hideout.

The Aum investigation is far from closed, and many questions remain unanswered. Foremost is why Asahara allegedly ordered the attack. Police are also eager to know if Aum was behind last month's attempted assassination of Tokyo police chief Takaji Kunimatsu and the disappearance in 1989 of a lawyer who was investigating Aum, along with his wife and infant son. Asahara continues to insist he is innocent. Makoto Endo, a lawyer who has visited him in jail and who represents another arrested cult member, says Asahara is distraught because no attorney wants to take his case. When Endo refused because he didn't feel Asahara was "150% innocent," the man who claims to be a living Buddha asked, "What am I going to do without a lawyer?"

--With reporting by Irene M. Kunii and Satsuki Oba/Tokyo

With reporting by IRENE M. KUNII AND SATSUKI OBA/TOKYO