Times Online
February 23, 2006 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2054856,00.html >From most-feared terrorist to defiant sexagenarian - Fusako Shigenobu (AFP/Getty Images) Japan's female terror leader is jailed for 20 years By Simon Freeman and agences With a shock of grey hair framing a face dominated by thick spectacles, the 60-year-old in the dock made an unlikely candidate for Japan's most feared terrorist. There was evidence of her legendary defiance as Fusako Shigenobu - founder of the once-dreaded Japanese Red Army - raised her fist in anger at the Tokyo judge who today sentenced her to 20 years in prison. Shigenobu was imprisoned for co-ordinating a siege on the French embassy in the Netherlands more than 30 years ago: one of the most high-profile operations in her militant organisation's ten-year campaign of terror. There was defiance too in a statement read outside court after she was led away: "The verdict is not the end. It is only the beginning. Strong will shall keep spreading." Reporters noted that the statement was a haiku. The extraordinary story that had unfolded before the court was one of a smart-suited office girl who became converted to the socialist cause and led a radical leftist a group to commit atrocities which shocked the world. Shigenobu maintained her innocence over the 1974 seige, in which three Red Army militants stormed the embassy at The Hague, taking the ambassador and ten other staff hostage for 100 hours. Two police officers were shot and seriously wounded. France ended the stand-off by freeing a jailed Red Army guerrilla, who flew off with the hostage-takers in a plane to Syria. Although the judge accepted that Shigenobu had not personally taken part in the raid, her standing within the organisation was such that he held her responsible for masterminding the operation . "The court acknowledges that the defendant was a leader and the central figure of the group. However, it cannot be said that she organised the Hague incident as the main operating member," Judge Hironobu Murakami said in Tokyo District Court. "Therefore, the court judged the demand of life in prison would be too heavy and 20 years would be appropriate," he said. Shigenobu entered the radical left amid worldwide tumult over the Vietnam War in the 1960s. In her memoirs she described how she was walking to her job at a soy sauce factory when she passed one of the sit-in protests at a Tokyo university. Only 20 years old at the time, she was in the process of applying for night school to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. A man invited her to join the sit-in, and she politely accepted: "I had no reason to refuse, so I did. It was the beginning of my campus movement," she wrote. Shigenobu became embroiled in the growing leftist movement and grew convinced that Japan could be drawn into the socialist fold only by actions overseas. Five years later, she left for the Lebanon to help fight the Palestinian cause. Only a few photographs of her time in the Middle East exist. One shows her with her straight waist-length hair, smiling with a machine gun pressed to her chest. The Japanese Red Army announced itself on the world stage in May 1972 when three members dressed in business suits sprayed gunfire at Tel Aviv's airport after landing on an Air France flight. Twenty-six people were killed, most of them Puerto Rican pilgrims. Two of Shigenobu's Red Army colleagues also died in the gun battle. Under close surveillance by security police, she changed the name on her passport through a fake marriage with one of the victims. The attack was later explained as an attempt to seize air control above the airport, used as an Israeli military base. The Japanese Red Army became known as a ruthless extremist group, seizing embassies and hijacking airplanes to secure the release of their members, and cooperating closely with the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP). But Shigenobu eventually realised that her ideal, in which the Palestinians would lead a leftist revolution eventually spreading to Japan, was a distant dream. With the passing years, she disappeared, emerging only in 2000 when she resurfaced in Osaka to be arrested. In her memoirs she wrote: "The defeat of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe meant in short that the international communist movement failed to achieve people's sovereignty, which is the core of socialism. And we also failed." Although expressing regret at the collapse of her youthful ideals, Shigenobu also conveyed sorrow in court for those who had been caught in the crossfire. "When I stand in court, I always feel exposed to the eyes of two groups of people. One is the victims and the other is the fellow commanders who died in battle," she said in a message released by her lawyers. As well as the crowd of elderly supporters, Shigenobu's daughter - the product of a relationship with a PLFP militant and now aged 32 - has followed the proceedings from the public gallery. After the sentence was announced, her daughter said: "I think the verdict is judging the incident of 30 years ago through the eyes of the present day. It seems to be trying not only the events of 30 years ago but also the entire era of the history," she said. Kyoko Otani, representing Shigenobu, said that her client would appeal. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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