A 70-year-old man revealed to cops on his deathbed that he was one of Japan’s most wanted fugitives before he died.
The man claimed to be Satoshi Kirishima, a radical extremist behind bombings in the capital who had been on the run for 49 years.
Satoshi Kirishima, one of Japan’s most wanted fugitives, may have been found
APKirishima’s mugshot became infamous in Japan for his smiling face[/caption]
GettyGlass windows are blown off after an EAAJAF bomb blasts the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Headquarters in 1974 in Tokyo[/caption]
Last week local police were tipped off that he might be sheltering in a hospital not far from Tokyo.
When they questioned the man, he told them that he had been hiding under an alias in Fujisawa City – just an hours drive from Tokyo – for decades.
The man claiming to be Kirishima said he had terminal cancer and wanted to finally admit his real identity before his death.
He apparently revealed details about the bombings that police didn’t know before.
Four days after he was questioned the old man died on Monday – before cops could confirm his tale.
DNA tests carried out on him and relatives of the suspect Kirishima were apparently compatible, Japanese outlet Kyodo News reported.
But police refused to confirm those reports.
However National Police Agency chief Yasuhiro Tsuyuki said: “We believe that the man who died at the hospital after claiming to be Satoshi Kirishima was actually the suspect”.
Wanted man Kirishima was part of a militant group that bombed Tokyo repeatedly in the 1970s.
He had been studying at university in Tokyo when he joined an extremist left-wing group called the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF).
The group’s philosophy supported revolution against the state, was anti-war, opposed the country’s big corporations and symbols of imperialism.
Most of the group’s members were arrested by authorities – but it now appears as though the missing Kirishima may have dodged them for 50 years.
They carried out several brutal attacks in the 1970s which targeted major Japanese companies.
One of the group’s attacks was the 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing which killed eight people and injured almost hundreds of others.
EAAJAF, who was firmly against the Pacific War, targeted the company who manufactured weapons.
They carried out two more bombings in Tokyo that year, before seven of them were arrested the following May.
Several of them were sentenced to death.
Kirishima had been hiding from police since 1975 and was last heard of at the end of May when he called his father and said “I’m in Okayama with three women.
“Please prepare money. I’m thinking of fleeing abroad.”
Local media reports said the man in hospital told cops: “I want to use my real name in my final moments,” before claiming to be Kirishima.
As his surreal story unfolded he explained that he had lived under the pseudonym Hiroshi Uchida in Fujisawa City for decades.
He had been living in an old flat near where he worked at a construction company, and even went dancing in a bar nearby once a month.
GettyEmergency services rush to the scene after the 1974 Mitsubishi bombing[/caption]
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