A Japanese man’s deathbed confession – that he was one of the country’s most wanted fugitives and had been on the run for nearly 50 years – has turned out to be true.
The 70-year-old, who was dying of stomach cancer, told police he wanted to die using his real name, Satoshi Kirishima, instead of his alias, Hiroshi Uchida.
Four days before he died, Kirishima revealed to police he was part of a radical group that carried out bombings in the 1970s.
DNA test results processed after his death confirmed he was telling the truth.
Born in 1954, Kirishima was a university student in Tokyo when he became involved in extremism and joined the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, a militant group that carried out a series of bombings targeting major Japanese companies in the 1970s.
Eight people died and more than 160 were injured in the 1975 bombing of a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries building which was blamed on the group.
Kirishima was allegedly involved in a number of the bombings.
He was wanted on charges of setting off a time bomb in a building in Tokyo’s posh Ginza district in April 1975 in which no one was injured.
Though not a key member of the group, he was said to be the only one of 10 members who was never caught.
While on the run, Kirishima did not have a mobile phone or health insurance and had his salary paid in cash to avoid detection, according to NHK public television.
A photo on Kirishima’s wanted poster shows him smiling, with long hair and glasses.
Two members of the group were sentenced to death, including founder Masashi Daidoji, who died on death row in 2017.
Two of the eight members of the group who were indicted in the bombings are still at large after their release in 1977 as part of a deal negotiated by another radical group, the Japanese Red Army, when it hijacked a Japan Airlines plane in Bangladesh.
Police are continuing to investigate how he managed to evade capture for 49 years, and whether anyone helped him build a new, second life.
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The Japan Times reported Kirishima had been living in Fujisawa in the Kanagawa Prefecture, in Toyko’s west.
He had been employed at a building firm for around 40 years.
