“I want to live my last moments under my real name,” explained this 70-year-old man who was suffering from terminal stomach cancer on his hospital bed near Tokyo.
After registering under another identity, he then revealed himself to be Satoshi Kirishima, a former member of a small Japanese far-left group on the run for nearly 50 years, one of the most wanted men in Japan.
A black and white photo of a man with a youthful smile, thick glasses and long hair had even been displayed for decades on the walls of police stations throughout Japan.
Police have confirmed through DNA test results that a man who died last month after confessing he was Satoshi Kirishima, wanted for one of a series of terrorist bombings in 1970s Japan, was the suspect.
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In the early 1970s, the man was part of the Anti-Japanese Armed Front of East Asia, a far-left revolutionary organization that carried out bombings against major Japanese companies.
One of these attacks, in 1974 at the headquarters of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries company in Tokyo, left eight people dead and many injured.
In 1975, a homemade bomb exploded in Tokyo in April 1975 but without causing any casualties.
Most of the members of the small group were arrested in May 1975, but Satoshi Kirishima escaped the dragnet and the police never found his trace.
According to local media, he managed to hide by working under a false name for a construction company southwest of Tokyo for decades.
DNA analyzes “made it possible to confirm that the person who died in hospital on January 29 was Satoshi Kirishima,” said a spokesperson for the Japanese police.