Posts Tagged ‘Tsutomu Shirosaki’
Alleged Japanese Red Army member Tsutomu Shirosaki found guilty, given 12-year sentence (Japan)
Tuesday, November 29th, 2016
Alleged Japanese Red Army member Tsutomu Shirosaki has been found guilty in his trial over the May 1986 mortar attack on the Japanese embassy in Jakarta. The Tokyo District Court today handed down a 12-year sentence for the attack, in which two projectiles were launched from a hotel room but failed to cause injury or extensive damage.
Shirosaki was deported to Japan in February 2015, having serving 18 years in prison in America for an attack on the US embassy during the same incident. He was then arrested at Narita Airport and his trial for attempted murder began in September, concluding on November 1st.
Shirosaki was a veteran of Sekigun-ha (Red Army Faction), the far-left domestic group out of which the JRA partly emerged. He was arrested in 1971 for bank robbery (Sekigun-ha carried out a successful bank robbery campaign to raise funds) but freed in October 1977 when the JRA hijacked a plane, forced it to land in Dhaka and demanded the release of various prisoners in Japan. He was later re-arrested in Nepal in 1996 by local authorities in co-operation with the FBI. (more…)
Tags: Indonesia, Jakarta, Japan, Japanese Red Army, Repression, Trial, Tsutomu Shirosaki
Posted in Prison Struggle
Comrade Tsutomu Shirosaki arrested at Narita airport after being deported (Japan)
Friday, February 20th, 2015
Tsutomu Shirosaki, 67, is a Japanese national who was imprisoned as a political prisoner in the United States. He was accused of being a member of the Japanese Red Army and participating in several attacks, including a mortar attack against a U.S. embassy. Shirosaki was freed on 16 January 2015, and the U.S. Justice Department had been taking procedures to deport him to Japan, which has long wanted him for arrest. Tokyo police arrested Shirosaki immediately when he arrived today at Narita airport, as the Japanese State wants to get revenge for the legacy of the Japanese Red Army and to punish Shirosaki for his claim of responsibility of joining the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine when he was in Lebanon.
Tsutomu Shirosaki was born in 1947 in central Japan. In the 1960s, he went to Tokyo University, where he received a degree in engineering. It was during his college years, where Tsutomu began participating in the student movement, embracing a more left-wing philosophy. By the 1970s, Shirosaki participated in various underground activities, including a string of bank and post office robberies. These actions were fund-raising activities for Japanese radical groups. But in 1971, Shirosaki was arrested in Tokyo and sentenced to ten years in prison for an attack on a Bank of Yokohama branch office. (more…)
Tags: Anti-Imperialist International Brigade (AIIB), Japan, Japanese Red Army, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Prison Transfer, Repression, Tsutomu Shirosaki, USA
Posted in Prison Struggle