Police Fukuoka City, JapanPoster with image of Satoshi Kirishima
NOS News•today, 06:01•Changed today, 06:49
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Anoma van der Veere
Correspondent Japan
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Anoma van der Veere
Correspondent Japan
A man believed to be far-left terrorist Satoshi Kirishima has been arrested in a hospital in Japan. The 70-year-old man is one of the most wanted criminals in Japan. He was involved in a series of deadly bombings in the 1970s.
The police are trying to confirm his identity through DNA analysis and determine where Kirishima has lived in recent decades and under what circumstances. The public has been asked for help in this regard.
Fugitive for half a century
Kirishima has been high on the list of Japan’s most wanted criminals for half a century. On investigative posters at police stations and busy train stations, he is depicted with a big smile and long hair.
Kirishima seems to have been hiding in plain sight all this time.
Two days ago, police received a report that a man registered under the name Satoshi Kirishima had been admitted to a hospital in Kanagawa province, south of Tokyo. He appeared to have detailed information about the attacks and to speak openly about them.
He has been undergoing treatment for terminal cancer since the beginning of this year. Initially he stayed in the hospital under an assumed name, but information from the police shows that he wants to spend his last days under his own name.
“I was in shock when I heard it,” a former classmate of Kirishima told broadcaster NHK. “I wondered if he was still alive.”
Akito Ishibashi (64), son of one of the killed victims, hopes that he will finally get answers. “I want to know why they committed bombings at the time and what their thoughts were. I want him to regret his life and openly acknowledge that he made a mistake.”
Deadly bomb attacks in the heart of Tokyo
Kirishima was a member of the East Asia Armed Anti-Japan Front, a far-left anarchist group that opposed the Japanese state and its “imperialist ambitions.” The group targeted companies active abroad with homemade bombs.
The group is held responsible for twelve attacks that killed eight people. Hundreds of people were seriously injured.
Kirishima himself was directly involved in the 1975 bombing of the Korea Industrial Research Group in the busy Ginza district in the heart of Tokyo. Two members of the group were arrested shortly after the series of attacks and sentenced to death for their part in the plot.
According to the national police, two of the nine suspects, Norio Sasaki and Ayako Daidoji, are still on the run abroad. Partly for this reason, the police have suspended the limitation period.
This means that Kirishima could still be prosecuted for his part in the bombings.
2024-01-27 05:01:33
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