Photo/IllutrationFormer Japanese Red Army member Kozo Okamoto, seated, attends a commemoration ceremony at a Palestinian cemetery with PFLP members in May 2022. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

  • Photo/Illutration

Kozo Okamoto, a former Japanese Red Army member who took part in the 1972 mass shooting at an airport in Israel before gaining political asylum in Lebanon, has died, a Palestinian group said.

Okamoto was 78.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said Okamoto died on July 23 in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

Like the PFLP, Okamoto had fought to free Palestinians from Israeli occupation, and resorted to extreme measures for that cause.

On May 30, 1972, Okamoto and two accomplices opened fire at Lod Airport, now Ben Gurion Airport, in Tel Aviv, killing or injuring about 100 people.

Japanese Militant in Tel Aviv Airport Attack Dies in Lebanon at 78 - The New York Times

Okamoto, the only surviving perpetrator of the attack, was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli court.

However, he was released in 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian side.

While hiding in Lebanon, Okamoto was arrested in 1997 on charges of illegal residence, but he was granted political asylum in 2000.

The Japanese Red Army was a far-left militant group that operated mainly overseas during the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1971, Fusako Shigenobu, the terrorist group’s former leader, and other members traveled to Lebanon, where they contacted the PFLP.

With support from the PFLP, the Japanese Red Army became the international base of operations for the extremist group Red Army Faction.

Following the Lod Airport attack, the Japanese Red Army carried out a series of hijackings and occupations of diplomatic establishments, including in Dubai in 1973, the Hague in 1974, Kuala Lumpur in 1975, and Dhaka in 1977.

In 1997, five members of the Japanese Red Army, including Okamoto, were arrested in Lebanon.

Okamoto was granted political asylum.

But the other four were deported and returned to Japan in March 2000, where they were taken into custody by police.

In November of the same year, Shigenobu, who had been hiding in Japan, was also arrested.

She was released in May 2022 after serving a 20-year prison sentence for the Japanese Red Army’s attack and hostage-taking at the French Embassy in the Hague.