Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, 10 September: Prosecutors on Monday [10 September] sought a 15-year prison sentence for former Red Army Faction member Yoshimi Tanaka, who is on trial for the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines (JAL) jet and other charges.
The defence is scheduled to deliver closing arguments on 29 October at the Tokyo District Court.
Tanaka, 53, and eight other members of the Red Army Faction hijacked the Boeing 727, with the ship name Yodogo, on 31 March 1970, after it left Tokyo en route to Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, according to the indictment.
The hijackers eventually forced the plane to land at Pyongyang on 3 April, where they were granted political asylum. En route, the hijackers inflicted minor injuries on five of the 129 passengers and crew onboard, the indictment says.
On Monday, prosecutors said, "It was the first hijacking case in Japan and caused tremendous psychological and physical pain to many passengers and crew.
"Given that it was an extreme crime ignoring and jeopardizing the rule of law and the principle of democracy, a severe penalty should be sought to forestall a recurrence of similar act," the prosecutors said.
They said that Tanaka played an important role in the incident - widely known in Japan as the Yodogo incident - as he was issuing orders to other faction members.
At the first hearing held in December last year, Tanaka admitted to the charges of hijacking the plane and inflicting injuries on the five people, and offered his apologies, saying the group took innocent people hostage and that their actions were "inexcusable."
Tanaka is also accused of throwing firebombs into a Tokyo police station and into the grounds of a neighbouring junior high school in September and October 1969.
Tanaka was arrested in Cambodia in 1996 and eventually handed over to authorities in Thailand, who accused him of using counterfeit US banknotes at a Thai beach resort.
After being acquitted of the counterfeiting charges in 1999, he was extradited to Japan in June 2000.
Known as "Sekigunha" in Japanese, the Red Army Faction was formed in 1969 and advocated global revolution through armed struggle.
A splinter group, the Japanese Red Army, broke away two years later and gained international notoriety in the 1970s through a series of terrorist acts abroad.
Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0811 gmt 10 Sep 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
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Any info on this dude? The Red Army Faction's HQ was in Lebanon. Dude got married in N.K. and worked for NKIS. "...accused him of using counterfeit US banknotes..."--"Supernotes" affair.