TOKYO – A man thought to be the suspect wanted for one of a series of terrorist bombings in Japan in the 1970s died Monday morning at a hospital near Tokyo, an investigative source said.
The man recently confessed to being alleged bomber Satoshi Kirishima, who was a member of an extreme left-wing group. He was undergoing treatment for terminal stomach cancer at the hospital in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, and was confirmed dead at 7:33 a.m., according to the source.
Kirishima, who would now be 70 years old, was a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, a radical group that carried out the high-profile bombings. He has long been wanted on suspicion that he planted and detonated a homemade bomb in a building in Tokyo’s Ginza district on April 19, 1975.
The man had been making outpatient visits to the hospital for about a year and was hospitalized earlier in January. He revealed his true identity last Thursday, saying he wanted to draw the curtain on his life under his real name.
The man had lived under the name Hiroshi Uchida and was an employee of a building firm in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, for decades, according to other investigative sources.
He avoided bank transactions and received his wages in cash. He also did not possess a health insurance card or driver’s license and received treatment at the hospital at his own expense.
The East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front carried out a number of attacks on Japanese companies and entities, including the bombing of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’s headquarters in central Tokyo in 1974 that killed eight people and injured 165.
A 73-year-old man, whose acquaintance was injured in the bombing of the Mitsubishi Heavy building, said he wondered at the time what the group’s goal was. “In the end, did he (the man thought to be Kirishima) want to speak the truth? It feels like things happened so quickly after he was found.”
In May 1975, police arrested eight individuals over their involvement in the attacks. As some suspects, including 75-year-old Ayako Daidoji, are still on the run overseas, the statute of limitations in Kirishima’s case has been suspended.
Kirishima was officially declared missing in April 2003.
