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Radical group member pleads innocence over 1971 cop murder

73-year-old member of a Japanese radical group pleads innocent over the 1971 riot which left a policeman dead. (AFP)
73-year-old member of a Japanese radical group pleads innocent over the 1971 riot which left a policeman dead. (AFP)
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25 Oct 2022 02:10:35 GMT9
25 Oct 2022 02:10:35 GMT9

Tokyo: A 73-year-old member of a Japanese radical group called Chukaku-ha pleaded his innocence in his first hearing held on Tuesday over the 1971 riot in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, which left one policeman dead.

The Chukaku-ha member, Masaaki Osaka, who was on the run for around 46 years before being arrested at a hideout in the western Japan city of Hiroshima in 2017, is accused of murder, arson of inhabited structure and three other crimes.

In the hearing held at Tokyo District Court, Osaka said he did not commit any of the five crimes and was innocent.

As there is no compelling evidence pointing to Osaka’s involvement, the focal point of the trial will be on the credibility of testimonies given by former students who were in their teens at the time.

In an opening statement, public prosecutors said Osaka, along with Fumiaki Hoshino, who died at the age of 73 while serving his indefinite prison sentence for leading the riot, and others, surrounded the policeman, Tsuneo Nakamura, then 21, and screamed, “Kill him! Kill him!”

After other members of the radial group beat Nakamura, who was not resisting, and threw a firebomb at him, Osaka fled from the scene together with Hoshino and others and said in a speech at a rally on the following day that the group eliminated a riot policeman, according to the prosecutors.

The defense side said that Osaka’s trial is abnormal as it is based only on confessions made 50 years ago by then university students from Gunma Prefecture who were unacquainted with the suspect.

Claiming that there is no objective evidence and that the then students were forced into making the confessions by investigators, the defense insisted that Osaka was at the tail end of a crowd of demonstrators and was absolutely not involved in the attack.

According to the indictment, Osaka, in conspiracy with a number of students, laborers and others, attacked and injured three policemen with firebombs and iron pipes, and murdered Nakamura in the Japanese capital’s Shibuya Ward on Nov. 14, 1971.

Hearings in Osaka’s trial will be conducted 22 times through March next year, during which examinations of 28 witnesses, including the former students, will be held, according to the defense side.

JIJI Press

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