Dying Japanese man confesses to being on most wanted list for 50 years
3 Min Read
Satoshi Kirishima was the only one of 10 members of the Japan Armed Front who was not caught.
-
A wanted poster, center top, for Satoshi Kirishima, a fugitive who had long been wanted for one of a series of bombings in Japan, is displayed outside a Police station Friday, February 2, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP)
Japanese police revealed that a dying man in a Japanese hospital informed them that he had been on the run for nearly 50 years as he was one of the country’s most wanted fugitives for being part of a radical group that carried out bombings in the 1970s.
Police elaborated that they received a tip, which prompted them to go to the hospital near Tokyo last week and question the 70-year-old man. The latter informed them that he had terminal cancer and wished to die under his real name, Satoshi Kirishima, instead of his alias. He also revealed previously unknown details about the bombings, according to the police.
Kyodo news announced yesterday that the DNA tests conducted on him and his relative showed a match as he had already passed away on Monday, four days after the questioning, without police having confirmed his identity. However, the police did not confirm that report.
On Thursday, National Police Agency chief, Yasuhiro Tsuyuki declared, “We believe that the man who died at the hospital after claiming to be Satoshi Kirishima was actually the suspect."
Who is Satoshi Kirishima?
Kirishima was born in 1954 and studied at a university in Tokyo where he joined the Japan Armed Front, a political group that carried out a series of bombings targeting major Japanese companies in the 1970s. In the 1975 bombing of a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries building, allegedly initiated by the group, eight people died and more than 160 were injured.
Kirishima allegedly partook in several bombings, one of which was setting off a timebomb in a building in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza district in April 1975, and was wanted on charges for the latter even though no one was injured.
He revealed that he was the only one of the 10 group members who was never caught, noting that he was not a key member of the group.
According to NHK public television, while on the run, Kirishima did not own a mobile phone or health insurance and had his salary paid in cash to avoid detection.
NHK and other media also revealed that on Friday, police investigators raided a construction company where he had worked using the alias Hiroshi Uchida for about 40 years.
Two members of the group were sentenced to death, including its founder, Masashi Daidoji, who died on death row in 2017.
