[sixties-l] Japanese Red Army Founder Arrested

From: radman (resist@best.com)
Date: 11/09/00

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     > Japanese Red Army Founder Arrested
    ============================
     > Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
     >
     > By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer
     >
     > TOKYO--Police arrested a fugitive founder of the lethal left-wing Japanese
     > Red Army on Wednesday, ending more than 25 years underground for a leader
    of
     > a terrorist force blamed in a 1972 massacre at an Israeli airport and a
     > series of other attacks.
     >      Police captured the 55 -year-old Fusako Shigenobu as she left a hotel
     > in the western city of Osaka with two companions.
     >      "I'll fight on!" Shigenobu shouted on arrival in Tokyo under heavy
     > escort, raising her handcuffed wrists high in the air to give a defiant
     > thumbs-up sign.
     >      Japan's TV networks covered her transfer to the capital live,
     > alternating reports on the progress of the bullet train with updates on
    the
     > U.S. presidential election.
     >      Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori praised her captors: "I highly commend
    the
     > police for arresting the leader of the Red Army, which had carried out
     > terrorism and guerrilla activities since the 1960s."
     >      Shigenobu was arrested on a Japanese warrant accusing her of taking
     > hostages in a 1974 attack on the French Embassy at The Hague, Netherlands,
     > police said without elaboration.
     >      Authorities in the September 1974 attack ultimately freed a jailed
    Red
     > Army member in return for the militants' release of the French ambassador.
     >      Police did not comment publicly on how they found the left-wing
    leader.
     > Japan's Kyodo news agency said authorities received a tip in July that she
     > was in Japan.
     >      In late October, investigators spotted a woman matching her
    description
     > at a hide-out of leftist radicals, Kyodo said.
     >      Shigenobu previously had been thought to be outside Japan. She had
    been
     > on wanted lists worldwide.
     >      Shigenobu was a member of the original Red Army, formed in Japan amid
     > the student unrest of the late 1960s. Facing intense police pressure and
     > hoping to start a worldwide movement, she left Japan to set up a splinter
     > group, called the Japanese Red Army, in Lebanon in 1971.
     >      The Japanese Red Army carried out several high-profile terrorist
     > attacks, including the 1972 shooting at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv
    that
     > killed 24 people.
     >      Three Red Army members launched the assault with grenades and machine
     > guns. Shigenobu's husband and another Red Army member died in the attack.
     > Israel sentenced the only survivor among the attackers to life in prison.
     >      In 1975, the group took hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur,
     > Malaysia. In 1977, Japanese Red Army members hijacked a Japan Airlines
    plane
     > to Dhaka, Bangladesh.
     >      Investigators also suspect the group in a rocket attack on the U.S.
     > Embassy in Rome in 1987.
     >      The group is not blamed in a major attack since a car bombing at a
    U.S.
     > military club killed an American and four other people in Naples in 1988.
     >      Several Japanese Red Army leaders were given safe haven in Lebanon
     > because they were seen as heroes for the Israeli airport attack and for
     > their support of the Palestinian cause.
     >      In March, however, four were arrested after Lebanon agreed to deport
     > them. Lebanon granted asylum to one leader, Kozo Okamoto, citing his
     > "physical and psychological injuries."
     >      A National Police Agency official said at least six leading Japanese
     > Red Army members from the 1970s remain at large.
     >
    



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