An ex-member of a Japanese radical leftist group which was behind deadly bomb blasts that shook Japan in the 1970s may have been caught after being 50 years on the run, Japan-based newspaper Japan Times said in a report.
A smiling mugshot of Satoshi Kirishima has been featured on wanted posters outside Japanese police stations for decades and now authorities believe they have their suspect.
The man who claimed to be Kirishima is a patient at a hospital near Tokyo. He was admitted to the hospital under a different name. The man is suffering from terminal cancer.
Satoshi Kirishima was a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front. The East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front was a radical, left-wing organisation who were responsible for several bombings against companies in Japan’s Tokyo between 1972 and 1975.
In one attack, at least eight people were killed when the group targeted the headquarters of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 1974.
Japan’s National Police Agency have levelled charges of violations of “criminal regulations to control explosives” against Kirishima. They labelled him wanted for “serial bombings of companies”.
Kirishima also allegedly helped plant and detonate a homemade bomb which destroyed part of a building in Tokyo’s Ginza district in one such attack on April 18, 1975.
Now, after 49 years, Kirishima, who now would be 70, may have finally been found. Japanese news outlets said Kirishima used a different name while checking into the hospital in Kamakura City in Kanagawa, south of Tokyo.
Earlier this week, he told officials at the hospital that he was actually Kirishima. He told them he wanted to use his “real name” as he felt these were his final moments because he only had a few months to live.
Police officials said this is a bolt out of the blue for them and are carrying out DNA tests to confirm his identity.
Comments
0 comment