[10] By 1986, Asahara was aggressively trying to acquire followers to expand his cult, and asked Okazaki, who was a salesman, to sell books that promote the organization.

[23] On the morning of November 4, 1989, Okazaki along with a group of other cult members entered the Sakamoto family apartment through an unlocked door at 3 A.M.

In February 1990, Okazaki took photos of the sites where the Sakamotos were allegedly buried and sent them to Asahara, blackmailing him of sending the photos to the police if he did not give him money for living expenses, to which Asahara initially refused, prompting Okazaki to send maps and other photographs to the Kanagawa Prefectural Police and Sakamotos' lawyer's office.

[25] Several days later, Okazaki sent similar letters indicating the whereabouts of the corpses of Sakamoto and his wife to the police and the lawyers' office.

[25] Immediately after the Tokyo subway sarin attack, Okazaki turned himself in to the police out of fears of assassination by cult members and confessed to his crimes.

In the second trial in December of 2001, he faced a similar argument by the court, when he was told that his belief in Asahara "did not destroy his personality itself" and that the "transformation of his values was caused by his own desire".

[28] Although Okazaki appealed several times to the fact that he had confessed and turned himself to the police to overturn his sentence, it was never accepted and under the order of justice minister Yoko Kamikawa, the first wave of executions of cultists were carried out on July 6, 2018.

"[30][31] During the trials, Okazaki pointed out that one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack, Ikuo Hayashi, had received life imprisonment instead of the death penalty in exchange for his testimony.