Japan Red Army woman held after 3 decades on run

November 8, 2000
Web posted at: 11:38 AM HKT (0338 GMT)

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japanese police on Wednesday arrested a 55-year-old woman who had been on the run for nearly three decades for her alleged role in violence by the extreme leftist Japanese Red Army, domestic media said.

Fusako Shigenobu was arrested outside a hotel in the city of Takatsuki in western Japan, the media said.

Police were not immediately able to comment on the reports.

The Red Army was born out of the 1960s anti-Vietnam War movement and advocated the total destruction of capitalism. Its members fought at home against the presence of U.S. forces in Japan and then in the early 1970s took their struggle overseas.

Shigenobu helped found a branch of the group in 1971.

Last May, Tokyo police arrested Kasuo Tohira, 47, a top member of the group, for forging documents to enter Ecuador six years ago. Tohira was one of four Red Army members taken into custody after being deported from Lebanon. The other three were arrested shortly after arriving in Japan, on similar charges.

The four were allegedly part of a Red Army faction which took part in a 1972 attack on Israel's Lod airport in which 24 people were killed in a hail of machine-gun fire and grenade blasts.

Lebanon deported the four members to Japan earlier this year, but granted another top member, Kozo Okamoto, political asylum because he had participated in operations against Israel and was subsequently tortured in Israeli jails, Lebanon's Interior Ministry said at the time.

Japanese law enforcement officials have said they wanted to bring the group to justice for their alleged roles in international acts of terrorism committed by the Red Army over 20 years ago.

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