TOKYO -- The doomsday cult guru charged with murder in the nerve gas attack on Tokyo subways has confessed to that and other killings, news reports said Wednesday.


But members of the Aum Shinri Kyo religious cult said leader Shoko Asahara's confession had been forced.


Police refused to comment, but the cult and some reports said the confession was not strong enough to be admissible as evidence.


Asahara has been charged with masterminding the March 20 subway attack that killed 12 and sickened 5,500. Police believe cult members carried out the attack to fulfill his predictions of doom.


Asahara has previously denied involvement in the gassing.


He also is charged in a nerve gas attack in central Japan last year that killed seven people, with directing the 1989 murder of an anti-Aum lawyer and his family, as well as the murder this February of a man who was helping his younger sister try to quit the cult.


"In each case I gave the order and group leaders carried it out," Japan's public television network, NHK, quoted Asahara as telling investigators in a written confession.


NHK broke into normal programming to flash the news.


But the cult almost immediately drafted a handwritten statement quoting Asahara's lawyer as saying the confession had been forced and would be inadmissible in court.


A white-robed follower handed out photocopies of the unsigned statement outside the cult's headquarters late Wednesday night.


The cult said Asahara signed a written confession after being told the group may be forced to disband because authorities are considering enforcement of a seldom-used law against government subversion.


"The police interrogator threatened to invoke the subversion charge and outlaw the sect. The confession was forced and so does not have any value as evidence in court," said the guru's lawyer, Shoji Yokoyama.


The Tokyo Broadcasting System, a commercial network, quoted Asahara as saying "I submit my unconditional surrender," but said his confession did not appear concrete enough to be used against him.


Signed confessions almost guarantee convictions in Japan, and obtaining them is a standard tactic of public prosecutors, who work closely with police. They are one reason for Japan's conviction rate of 99 percent in cases which go to trial.


Legal experts have predicted Asahara's trial, to start Oct. 26, could take years if Asahara insists on his innocence. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.


Asahara faces a mountain of other material evidence on the nerve-gas cases and reported confessions by other senior Aum leaders, most of whom are reported to have told police that Asahara ordered the attacks and other crimes.


While most of the cult's leaders are in jail, seven fugitive members are being sought on suspicion of involvement in the subway attack and other crimes.


Police Wednesday were reported to be examining sodium cyanide found at an abandoned mountain campsite of one of the fugitives, Satoru Hirata, to determine if it matches that used in an attempted gas attack May 6 in one of Tokyo's busiest train stations.


A burning bag of the chemical was doused in a bathroom before its fumes could combine with an adjacent bag of chemicals and release enough cyanide gas to kill thousands.


Some fear the fugitives may attempt similar attacks when Asahara's trial begins.


Cult spokesman Fumihiro Joyu said Wednesday, prior to the reports of Asahara's confession, that the guru had asked the fugitives to turn themselves in to police "considering the situation."


(AP, Reuters)