Tsutsumi Sakamoto

On November 4, 1989, Tsutsumi Sakamoto (坂本 堤 Sakamoto Tsutsumi April 8, 1956 - November 4, 1989), a lawyer working on a class action lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo, a controversial new religious movement in Japan, was murdered, along with his wife and child, by perpetrators who broke into his apartment. Six years later the murderers were uncovered and it was established that the assassins had been members of Aum Shinrikyo at the time of the crime.

Tsutsumi was born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa. After he finished Yokosuka High School, he entered Tokyo University and graduated in law. He worked as a law clerk until he passed the bar exam in 1984 at age 27. From 1987 he worked as a lawyer at Yokohama Law Offices.

At the time of his murder, Sakamoto was known as an anti-cult lawyer. He had previously successfully led a class-action suit against the Unification Church on behalf of relatives of Unification Church members. In the suit the plaintiffs sued for assets transferred to the group, and for harm inflicted by worsened family relationships. A public relations campaign in which protesters demanded public attention to their cause was instrumental to Sakamoto's plan, and the Unification Church suffered a serious financial blow.

By organizing a similar anti-Aum public relations campaign, Sakamoto apparently sought to demonstrate that Aum members, similar to members of the UC, did not join the group voluntarily but were lured in by deception and were probably being held against their will by threats and manipulations. Furthermore, religious items were being sold at prices far greater than their market value, draining money out of the households of members. If a judgment was handed down in his clients' favor, Aum could become bankrupted, thus greatly weakening or destroying the group.

In 1988, in order to pursue the class action suit, Sakamoto initiated the establishment of Aum Shinrikyo Higai Taisaku Bengodan ("Coalition of Help for those affected by Aum Shinrikyo"). This was later renamed: Aum Shinrikyo Higaisha-no-kai or "Aum Shinrikyo Victims' Association". The group still operated under this title as of 2006.

On October 31, 1989, Sakamoto was successful in persuading Aum leader Shoko Asahara to submit to a blood test to test for the "special power" that the leader claimed was present throughout his body. He found no sign of anything unusual. A disclosure of this could be potentially embarrassing or damaging to Asahara. That same month, the Tokyo Broadcasting System taped an interview with Sakamoto regarding his anti-Aum efforts. However, the network secretly showed a video of the interview to Aum members without Sakamoto's knowledge, intentionally breaking its protection of sources. Aum officials then pressured TBS to cancel the planned broadcast of the interview.

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