Dead Man Identified as Suspected 1970s Japanese Bomber

Jiji Press

11:12 JST, February 27, 2024

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Police identified a man who died in January as Satoshi Kirishima, a 70-year-old suspect in a series of bombings mainly in Tokyo in the 1970s and filed a criminal accusation against him with public prosecutors on Tuesday.

The identification came after DNA analysis using samples from several relatives of Kirishima, analysis of seized goods and questioning of him, people familiar with the investigation said.

Kirishima is suspected of being involved in a total of five bombing incidents between February and April of 1975, including bombings of a building in Tokyo’s Ginza district and the headquarters of a predecessor of Hazama Ando Corp.

Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint against Kirishima with prosecutors, accusing him of committing attempted murder and violating explosive control rules.

Kirishima worked under the alias of Hiroshi Uchida for about 40 years as a live-in employee at a construction company in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. He was hospitalized in January this year for terminal stomach cancer and revealed his actual name.

Asked by police investigators during questioning four days before his death on Jan. 29 if he regretted the bombings, the man said, “Yes.” He said that he had been at large without supporters, according to people familiar with the investigation.

While denying his involvement in the Ginza incident, the man suggested that he had links with the bombing of the headquarters of the Hazama Ando predecessor, according to the people.

Kirishima was a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, a Japanese terror group that carried out 12 bomb attacks, including one that killed eight people at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. building in August 1974. Of the group’s 10 members, nine, excluding Kirishima, the youngest, have been arrested.