Man Believed to be Suspect of 1970s Bombings, Satoru Kirishima, Dies in Hospital from Terminal Cancer (Update 1)

The Yomiuri Shimbun

8:37 JST, January 29, 2024 (updated at 12:15 JST)

A man believed to be Satoshi Kirishima, who has been wanted for decades in connection with serial bombings that targeted companies in the 1970s, died Monday morning in a hospital, investigative sources said.

The man, 70, had terminal stomach cancer. The Metropolitan Police Department’s Public Safety Bureau is confirming whether the man was Kirishima with a DNA typing test.

The man had been using the alias Hiroshi Uchida for several decades, according to investigators, and was a live-in employee at a civil engineering company in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture.

His health condition worsened this month, and the man was admitted to a hospital in Kamakura in the same prefecture. He was hospitalized under his alias but told hospital staff on Thursday that his real name was Satoshi Kirishima, leading police to interview the man.

Kirishima was a member of the extreme leftist group East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front and has been wanted since May 1975 on suspicion of violating the Criminal Regulations to Control Explosives by detonating a homemade bomb in a building in Tokyo’s Ginza district the month before.