It is with a sad heart that we report the passing of Tsutomu Shirosaki. Tsutomu, a political prisoner and an alleged former militant in the Japanese Red Army, died Saturday while in a Japanese prison. Tsutomu died after choking during a meal. He was deeply loved and respected by members of the Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross.
Tsutomu Shirosaki was born on December 5, 1947 in Toyama, 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 partici- pating in the student movement, embracing a more left-wing philosophy. By the 1970s, Shirosaki participated in various under- ground 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.
Flight 472 Hijack
On September 28, 1977, five members of the Japanese Red Army hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 472 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They demanded $6 million from the Japanese government and the release of nine prisoners held in Japan. The prisoners listed included radical activist and members of the Japanese Red Army.
On October 2, six of the nine prisoners were released and taken to Dhaka. One of those prisoners released was Tsutomu
Shirosaki. The released prisoners, the JRA hijackers and the remaining hostages then flew to Algeria, where the hostages were released. According to Shirosaki, the released prisoners and JRA members even- tually ended up in Lebanon. After the drama of the hijacked settled, the Japanese author- ities announced that the released prisoners should turn themselves in to the nearest Japanese embassy. With no response from the prisoners, the Japanese government placed the freed prisoners on the Interpol wanted list.
Tsutomu Shirosaki, while choosing free- dom, had no idea where to go. He had never traveled outside of Japan and spoke no other language than his own. The other freed prisoners found themselves in a simi- lar situation. According to Shirosaki, the Japanese Red Army assisted the freed pris- oners in adjusting to the new region. Despite the generosity of the JRA, Shirosaki has stated that he never joined the organization. Instead, he became a volunteer fighter in the Palestinian revolution with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP.) With the Palestinian movement being so strong in Lebanon, Shirosaki did not need a passport to stay in the country.
Tsutomu Shirosaki never took the stand at his own trial. He has stated he had no part in the attacks in Jakarta or membership with the Japanese Red Army or the Anti- Imperialist International Brigade. He has argued that his fingerprint had been placed at the scene. In his own words, “I did not know that planting a copied finger print from a file is easy work, even in the early ’70s a corrupted policeman did, but a few years later it became clear. But I didn’t know such information, as mentioned, I was in Japan’s jail, then in Lebanon, then in South Asia, so no news about such activities.”
Tsutomu Shirosaki was sentenced to two concurrent 20 year terms, two concurrent 10 year terms. The 20 year terms were ordered to run consecutively to the 10 year terms for a total prison time of 30 years in federal prison.
1986 Bombing in Jakarta
On May 14, 1986, two mortar-styled rock- ets were fired into the U.S. Embassy com- pound in Jakarta, Indonesia. Then, two rock- ets were fired from a hotel room toward the Japanese Embassy. Also that morning, a car bomb exploded in the Canadian Embassy parking lot causing injuries to three people. A group calling itself the Anti-Imperialist International Brigade (AIIB) claimed respon- sibility for the action. The attacks were in response to the G7 summit in Tokyo.
Seven weeks after the incident, the Japanese government announced that they
had found a fingerprint of Tsutomu Shirosaki in the hotel room where the rockets were launched at the Japanese embassy. They also claimed the Anti-Imperialist International Brigade was another named for the Japanese Red Army.
During the time of the attack, Tsutomu Shirosaki was still in Lebanon. He was not in Jakarta and was not a member of either the JRA or the AIIB. Shirosaki did not respond to the claims of his involvement because he felt they were so ridiculous. He was in Lebanon and thought that he was in a safe haven.
After the Oslo Accords, it became difficult for the Palestinian armed resistance to exist in Lebanon, so Shirosaki decided to leave. Using a false ID, he traveled to South Asia.
In December of 1987, Italian authorities announced an international warrants for Tsutomu Shirosaki and another suspected AIIB/JRA member, Junzo Okudaira, for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Rome six months earlier. The attack, claimed by the AIIB, was committed in response to the Economic Summit taking place in Venice, Italy.
The Arrest and Deportation
On September 21, 1996, local police in Kathmandu, Nepal arrested Tsutomu Shirosaki after he tried to contact some friends, whose phone was tapped by the US National Security Agency. He was handed over to the FBI and extradited to the United States to stand trial.
After arriving in the United States, Shirosaki stood before a 15-day trial and was sentenced to two concurrent 20-year terms and also given 10-year terms on other chargers. The 20-year terms were ordered to run consecutively to the 10-year terms for a total prison time of 30 years.
He was released from the U.S. Prison system in 2015 after proving to be a model inmate.The same year, Shirosaki was deported from the United States and arrested on his return to Japan by Tokyo police. In 2018, the Tokyo High Court upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced him to 12 years in prison for conspiring with a person to fire two mortars toward the embassy in the Indonesian capital. He has remained in a Japanese prison until his passing.
source: Anarchist Black Cross Federation