The case is just one of several of deaths, disappearances and other violence to which police have turned their attention after formal charges were filed June 6 against Shoko Asahara, 40, and other senior cult members in the subway attack.
In the new case, police said, Asahara is suspected of ordering the strangling of Kotaro Ochida, 29, a pharmacist at a hospital run by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, by Hideaki Yasuda, a 27-year-old former Aum member, in January 1994.
Yasuda told police that Asahara and 10 other senior cult members witnessed the killing at the cult's commune at Kamikuishiki, near Mount Fuji.
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