Four Yotoho Hijackers return to Japan from North Korea

Four members of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) who were charged with having hijacked a Japanese passenger jet “Yotoho” in 1970 coercing pilots to head to North Korea and who have been living there so far in exile have announced of their voluntary intention to return to Japan, Japanese press sources reported on July 10.

In order to enter Japan, the four hijackers, including Konashi Takahiro (57) and Akashi Shiro (54), signed a passage application form playing the role of a provisional passport and handed it over to a Japanese mediator in Pyongyang who brought the document to Japan on July 9.

The four hijackers who are still wanted by the Japanese police had promised since the 1980s via unofficial channels to return to Japan if the police acquitted them of any charges. But this time they expressed their wish to return despite a high probability of being arrested.

Explaining the reason why they were so desperate to return to Japan, the four said, “We just wanted to clear ourselves of the stain of having hijacked a plane we did not hijack”.

Some people, however, have voiced concerns over the possibility that it was North Korea who was standing behind the return of the four suspects to Japan in a bid to be removed from the U.S. list of terrorist nations since the four Japanese will need a permission of the North Korean authorities to leave the country. Despite the fact that North Korea has not committed any terrorist acts recently, the United States government nonetheless has been listing North Korea as a terrorist nation for 15 years because the latter had provided refuge to the Yotoho hijackers.

Though the U.S. government demanded that North Korea expel the hijackers, the North Korean authorities kept on defying the demand saying, “We cannot expel political exiles”. But now when North Korea is in a catch-22 situation as its relations with the U.S. and Japan have deteriorated, it has presumably decided to hand over the hijacking suspects disguising the incident as a totally “voluntary” action in a bid to improve its relations with the two nations.

ksshim@donga.com