AUM's Hayashi pleads guilty to gas attack murder charge TOKYO, June 26 (Kyodo) -- Former AUM Shinrikyo member Yasuo Hayashi pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of murder in connection with the March 1995 Tokyo subway gas attack and the June 1994 gas attack in Matsumoto, central Japan. He also pleaded guilty to attempted murder in a failed gas attack at a railway station. During the first hearing of his trial at the Tokyo District Court, the 39-year-old Hayashi admitted his part in the three cases, saying, ''I was involved in them and there is almost no mistake about the indictment. I am really sorry.'' Prosecutors have charged Hayashi with murder in conspiracy with the religious cult's founder Shoko Asahara, 42, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto. Hayashi and several other AUM members broke plastic bags containing sarin nerve gas in Tokyo subway trains March 20, 1995, resulting in the deaths of 12 people and injuries to 3,794 others, according to the indictment. Hayashi alone is charged with the murder of eight of the victims and causing injury to 2,473 others. In the June 1994 attack in a residential area of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in which seven people were killed, Hayashi is charged with abetting murder by helping to build a vehicle to release sarin there. He is also charged with attempted murder by planting a device to release cyanide gas at Tokyo's Shinjuku Station in May 1995. The device was found before it could do any harm. Hayashi had been on a nationwide wanted list and at large for some 18 months. He was arrested last December on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture. -- Top cultist pleads guilty to subway gassing murder TOKYO (AP) -- A former top member of a doomsday cult pleaded guilty today to murder charges in the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing that killed 12 people and injured 5,000. Yasuo Hayashi, 39, was arrested in December on a remote southern island after nearly two years on the run. He was the last of five Aum Shinri Kyo cult members accused of gassing the Tokyo subways to be arrested. In his first trial session at the Tokyo District Court, Hayashi admitted he stabbed three plastic bags containing sarin nerve gas with a sharpened tip of an umbrella inside a subway car, court officials said. Prosecutors say Hayashi alone was responsible for the death of eight passengers and the injury of nearly 2,500 others. Hayashi, who once was called the ``murder machine'' of the cult group, apologized to the court, Kyodo News agency reported. ``I went on the run because I was so scared that I would not escape capital punishment if I was ever arrested,'' Hayashi told the judges, according to the report. Hayashi also pleaded guilty to charges of assisting murder in a separate nerve gas attack in June 1994 that killed seven people in the central city of Matsumoto, as well as a failed attempt to release cyanide gas at one of Tokyo's most crowded railway stations in May 1996. Prosecutors have charged Hayashi with murder in conspiracy with cult guru Shoko Asahara. Asahara is being tried separately on murder charges in the subway gassing. -- China confirms popular evangelist detained BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese authorities confirmed Monday that they have detained the leader of an independent Christian evangelical church but rejected accusations that it was religious persecution. Peter Xu Yongze, head of the New Birth church, was arrested in March for violating rules governing social organizations, said Han Wenzao, president of the state-run Christian Council of China. ``The detaining of Xu is definitely not persecution of Christians by the Chinese government, but a normal handling of a criminal prosecution,'' the official Xinhua news agency quoted Han as saying. Han's statement, reported by the official Xinhua news agency, was Beijing's first official comment on the case. The Xinhua account did not elaborate on the reasons for Xu's arrest or indicate where he was jailed. The Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but Beijing does not recognize religious groups that are not government-affiliated. Independent religious leaders have been sentenced to jail and work camps. Followers of Xu's church, which is based in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, number in the millions, according to Hong Kong news reports. While dismissing any religious motives behind the arrest, Han insisted that Xu was doctrinally deficient. ``Xu's doings entirely ran counter to the teachings of the Bible and the true canons of Christ. Xu is not a Christian at all,'' he said. Xu's preaching about the imminent end of world led ``people to do no normal work but cry collectively every day,'' Han added. Independent Christian churches, some of which proclaim unorthodox beliefs rejected by mainstream sects, have flourished in China over the past two decades despite repeated crackdowns. Han noted that the U.S. and Japanese governments had taken action against religious groups on legal grounds in the cases of the Branch Davidian sect and the Aum Shinrikyo cult. -- Cult's former `murder machine' pleads guilty to Tokyo sarin murders TOKYO (AP) -- A man nicknamed the ``murder machine'' of a Japanese doomsday cult pleaded guilty Thursday to murder charges in the 1995 Tokyo subway gassing that killed 12 people and injured 5,000 others. Prosecutors say Yasuo Hayashi alone was responsible for eight of the deaths and for about half the injuries. The last of five cult members accused in the attack to be arrested, Hayashi, 39, was taken into custody in December on a remote southern island after nearly two years on the run. In his first trial session at the Tokyo District Court, Hayashi admitted he stabbed three plastic bags containing sarin nerve gas with a sharpened tip of an umbrella inside a subway car, court officials said. Hayashi, who got his nickname from the Japanese news media, apologized to the court, Kyodo News agency reported. ``I went on the run because I was so scared that I would not escape capital punishment if I was ever arrested,'' Kyodo said Hayashi told the judges. Hayashi also pleaded guilty to charges of assisting murder in a separate nerve gas attack in June 1994 that killed seven people in the central city of Matsumoto, as well as a failed attempt to release cyanide gas at one of Tokyo's most crowded railway stations in May 1996. Prosecutors have charged Hayashi with murder in conspiracy with cult guru Shoko Asahara. Asahara is being tried separately on murder charges in the subway gassing. -- And still the viewer asks, what is `Schizopolis' about?BY JOHN ANDERSON Newsday BEARING MORE than a hint of ``Heaven's Gate'' and something less than a pie in the face for Scientology, Steven Soderbergh's ``Schizopolis'' is a vaudevillian's search for identity, and may even be the director's sendup of himself. Does it work? Not usually, although its intentions seem serious. As far as ``Heaven's Gate'' goes, the movie's connection with it seems just a matter of good, or at least curious, timing. But the character T. Azimuth Schwitters (Mike Malone), his philosophy-in-book-form ``Eventualities'' and his Dilbertesque corporate religion, are all pretty pointed. And occasionally funny. More often, however, we're like Admiral Stockdale, wondering who we are and why we're here. Introducing the movie himself, Soderbergh -- who also stars as several intersecting characters and personalities who isn't/aren't as confused as he/they might be by all the goings-on -- tells us that any questions we have about the film are our fault. That we'll have to see the movie many, many times (spending many, many dollars) in order to clear things up. This won't happen. There are Monty Pythonesque bits of recurring goofiness -- a naked escapee from an institution who's pursued for most of the film -- and a daisy chain of adulteries, in which Munson (Soderbergh), who's been given the assignment of writing an important speech for Schwitters, discovers that his dentist/doppelganger, Dr. Korchek (Soderbergh again), is having an affair with his wife (Betsy Brantley). Or is it Korchek's wife? He promptly forgets her when he falls in love with -- the same woman. If you see where all this is going, your engagement with this review may be coming to a screeching halt any time now. Soderbergh's career, and his engagement with it, have been on something of a roller coaster since he burst on the scene with ``sex, lies and videotape.'' ``Kafka'' -- which this film calls to mind in more ways than one -- wasn't very well received; ``King of the Hill,'' a minor masterpiece, was largely ignored, and ``The Underneath'' was treated similarly. His most recent film, ``Gray's Anatomy,'' was basically a Spalding Gray vehicle, although enhanced by Soderbergh's direction. But Soderbergh's own sense of destination seems vague. He equates Hollywood with mind-control: Elmo (David Jensen), a bug exterminator, is turned into an egomaniacal action star by a couple of Hollywood casting directors who may as easily be cult recruiters. And the language used by his characters -- ``Generic greeting!'' ``Generic greeting returned!'' -- implies a society looted of its culture. Ostensibly a comedy, ``Schizopolis'' makes more than its share of sad observations about the state of the world. And the movies. o Schizopolis ** Rated: No MPAA rating (could be R for language, adult situations) Cast: Steven Soderbergh, Betsy Brantley, David Jensen, Eddie Jemison Writer/director: Steven Soderbergh Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes -- Shorts 6-27 News Fillers In 1971, The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, classified Defense Department documents detailing decisions that led to deeper U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The papers were supplied by former Defense aide Daniel Ellsberg, who was indicted for theft and espionage, but the charges against him were later dismissed. --- Heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in 1974 and later joined the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. She was captured by FBI agents in 1975 and convicted of robbery in 1976. She was released in 1979, after President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence. --- In 1978, in a mass suicide in Guyana, some 900 Americans killed themselves on orders of their cult leader Jim Jones, who also died. --- Boris Becker threatens Scientology over Internet BY ANDREW GRAY BONN (Reuter) - German tennis star Boris Becker threatened Friday to take legal action against the Church of Scientology unless it stopped using his picture and comments attributed to him on one of its Internet pages. The organization, which Germany views as anti-democratic and has put under intelligence surveillance, has a picture of Becker and his black wife Barbara at the top of an article headed ``The Trouble with Intolerance.'' A Scientology spokesman said it had not reported anything more than Becker himself said in an interview last year when he said he planned to move to the United States when his son reached school age. The article, with the sub-heading ``For many minorities, living in Germany means living in fear,'' cited Becker as an example of someone who had suffered ``years of intolerance and abuse, apparently owing to the fact that his wife is black.'' Becker's Munich-based lawyers demanded Scientology withdraw all reference to the former Wimbledon champion and pledge not to use his picture again. ``Boris Becker is in no way prepared to promote the aims of your organization in any manner,'' the lawyers said in a letter addressed to the Church of Scientology International in London. The article quoted Becker as saying: ``It happens when I spend a lot of time in Germany and appear on television or there are a lot of press reports about me...Suddenly the lunatics come out of their holes and send threatening letters and so on. I ask myself if it's worth it, to live in fear all the time.'' Scientology, based on the teachings of the late U.S. science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, asks members to take personality tests. They are then offered courses and literature to help them to realize what the group believes is their full potential. Germany takes a particularly hard line on Scientology, which it views purely as a business exploiting the insecurities of its members to make big profits. Scientology spokesman Georg Stoffel said it had used the reference to Becker because it wanted to draw attention to examples of alleged discrimination in Germany -- both against its own members and other people. ``We campaign for the rights of all minorities,'' he said. ``This was just one example.'' Becker's lawyers said they hoped their letter to Scientology would have a positive outcome. ``We would note now, however, that we reserve the right to take the necessary legal steps if this case is repeated,'' they said. Stoffel said he had not yet been informed about the letter and could not speculate whether Scientology would cooperate with Becker's request.