He used a pseudonym and confessed, “I want to die as Kirishima in the end.”
Local media reported that Satoshi Kirishima (桐島?, 70), who surrendered himself after 49 years as a member of the East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front, a radical armed struggle group that carried out a series of bombings of Japanese war criminal companies in the 1970s, died on the 29th.
According to reports from Asahi Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun, Kirishima died on the morning of the 29th at a hospital in Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture, where he had been hospitalized.
According to investigators involved, Kirishima had been working at a civil engineering company in Kanagawa Prefecture for decades under the pseudonym ‘Hiroshi Uchida (?田洋)’.
Then, this month, he was transferred from the company to the hospital. He was in a very serious condition with terminal stomach cancer.
Kirishima used the pseudonym ‘Hiroshi Uchida’ when he was admitted to the hospital. Afterwards, on the 25th, he told the hospital, “I am Satoshi Kirishima.” He said, “In the end, I want to die as Satoshi Kirishima.”
Afterwards, the Public Security Department of the Metropolitan Police Department contacted him and were in the process of confirming whether it was Kirishima himself through DNA analysis.
Kirishima told the police about the incident and the composition of his family, which only he knew.
According to the Metropolitan Police Agency, Kirishima planted a homemade bomb at the entrance door of the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade on the 5th floor of a building in Ginza, Tokyo, on the night of April 18, 1975. They are accused of detonating it using a time-limiting device in the early morning of the next day. He was wanted in May 1975.
The East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front, an armed struggle group advocating anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, issued a statement saying it committed 12 serial bombings, including in 1974 and 1975. Among them, 8 people died and 380 were injured in the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing incident.
Among the 10 members of the ‘East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front’ organization involved in this series of bombings, Kirishima was the only one who was never arrested. He was not caught for 49 years. He is from Hiroshima Prefecture and was a fourth-year student at Meiji Gakuin University at the time of the incident.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.