Hideo Murai (村井秀夫 ''Murai Hideo'', December 5, 1958 – April 23, 1995) was a member of the

Aum Shinrikyo , formerly , is a Japanese doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for the Matsumoto sarin attack the previous year. The group says tha ...

cult and one of the perpetrators responsible for the

Sakamoto family murder On November 5, 1989, Tsutsumi Sakamoto (坂本堤 ''Sakamoto Tsutsumi'' April 6, 1956 – November 5, 1989), a lawyer working on a class action lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo, a doomsday cult in Japan, was murdered, along with his wife Satoko and ...

. Murai held a doctorate in astrophysics. He was reportedly the number three person in the Aum leadership, after Asahara and Hayakawa. He headed Aum Shinrikyo's Ministry of Science and Technology.

Death

Murai was mortally wounded when an

ethnic Korean Koreans ( South Korean: , , North Korean: , ; see names of Korea) are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. Koreans mainly live in the two Korean nation states: North Korea and South Korea (collectively and simply refer ...

man named

Hiroyuki Jo is a Zainichi Korean member of , an (impersonated-)uyoku organization, and the Mie Prefecture-based Hane-gumi branch of Yamaguchi-gumi, a Yakuza organization. Jo assassinated Hideo Murai, a member of Aum Shinrikyo, on April 23, 1995. Charges th ...

(徐裕行 ''Jo Hiroyuki''), a member of the

Yamaguchi-gumi is Japan's largest ''yakuza'' organization. It is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its origins can be traced back to a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe before World War II. It is one of the largest criminal organizations i ...

(the largest organized crime

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

group in Japan), stabbed Murai repeatedly, in the presence of 10 police officers and about a hundred reporters recording the events and broadcasting them live. His attacker did not attempt to flee and was peacefully arrested on the spot. Murai died in an ambulance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murai, Hideo 1958 births 1995 deaths Aum Shinrikyo Japanese murder victims People murdered by the Yakuza Deaths by stabbing in Japan Filmed assassinations