Japanese Red Army Member Okamoto Dies in Lebanon

Cairo, July 23 (Jiji Press)–Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese Red Army member on an international wanted list as a perpetrator of a deadly shooting attack on an Israeli international airport in 1972, died in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, a Palestinian group said Thursday. He was 78. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine did not announce the cause of his death. A senior PFLP member said in a telephone interview that Okamoto died around noon Thursday local time after suffering poor health due to old age. His body will be buried around Beirut, the senior member said. The PFLP provided protection to Okamoto, who was from Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The PFLP said in a statement that it mourns his death, calling Okamoto a fighter who made enormous sacrifices for the cause of Palestine. Okamoto joined an extremist group as a student of Kagoshima University. After leaving Japan in February 1972 to find a base for his activities, he worked with the PFLP. His older brother, Takeshi, was a member of the group that hijacked the Japan Airlines “Yodo” jet in 1970 and is said to have died in North Korea. Okamoto and two other Japanese nationals were involved in the 1972 attack on Israel’s Lod Airport, now called Ben Gurion Airport. The incident left around 100 people dead or injured. The other two Japanese died at the scene. Okamoto was arrested in Israel and was imprisoned after being sentenced to life in prison. After being released in exchange for Palestinian radicals in 1985, he lived in Lebanon as a political exile. He was viewed as a hero among Palestinians and Lebanese people who regard Israel as an enemy. The PFLP cooperated with the Japanese Red Army in the airport attack. In a message sent to a rally in Tokyo in May 2023, Okamoto said, “I am already like a Palestinian,” without elaborating on the airport attack. Among members of the Japanese Red Army, which carried out terrorist attacks in many parts of the world, six are internationally wanted and still on the run. They include Kunio Bando, 79, Norio Sasaki, 77, and Hisashi Matsuda, 77, who were involved in the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1975. The other three are Junzo Okudaira, 77, Ayako Daidoji, 77, and Akira Nihei, 80, who hijacked a JAL aircraft that made an emergency landing at an airport in Bangladesh’s Dhaka in 1977. Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department has released photographs and portraits of the suspects on its website and YouTube. It seeks information, saying, “There is a possibility that they have secretly returned and are hiding in Japan.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]