The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks Read Online Free

contact with the hijackers, the captain, and two of the passengers. Yamamura offered to become a substitute hostage. When theylearned of Yamamura’s plan, the South Koreans objected. The hijackers agreed to allow the plane to be moved to a takeoff position, to allow passenger baggage to be removed, to release 50 passengers, to allow Yamamura to board, and to then release the other 50, at which time the plane would fly to North Korea.
    During the flight to North Korea, Pyongyang made ominous warnings about the possible incarceration and torture of the hostages. The plane never reached Pyongyang airport but landed in North Korean territory. The hijackers bounded from the plane and struck karate poses, acting as heroes. The North Koreans confiscated their weapons and separated them from the hostages, who were questioned in a local hotel. The communists announced that the hijackers would be given political asylum. On Saturday, they informed Yamamura and the crew that they were illegal immigrants. Yamamura had heard reports from former hijack victims that they had been beaten while held in North Korea and also recalled that the crew of the USS Pueblo was still being held. However, his group was allowed to leave. The jet returned to Tokyo on April 5. On April 6, North Korean broadcasts called the hijackers “strangers who came uninvited.”
    Sources differ as to the identity of the hijackers. During the attack, the 16-year-old identified himself as “Boya,” who had played hooky from Kobe High School that day. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) identified the group as O. Takeshi, W. Mariaki, A. Shiro, S. Yasumiro, K. Takahiro, A. Kimihiro, Takamaro Tamiya, 27, Yoshizo Tanaka, 25, and Kintaro Yoshida, 24. Various sources claim that Kozo Okamoto, a brother of a hijacker, was involved in the Lod Airport massacre on May 30, 1972.
    Two years later, eight of the hijackers met in North Korea with visiting Japanese journalists and informed them that they felt that the hijacking had been a mistake.
    Three lawyers representing Yasuhiro Shibata, a URA member indicted for the hijacking, left for Pyongyang on January 8, 1989, to obtain evidence. Shibata’s trial was to begin on January 23, 1989. The lawyers planned to contact the six other URA members who had remained in North Korea to determine Shibata’s motives for secretly returning to Japan. Shibata, 35, was arrested in Tokyo in May 1988. Tamiya, 45, had sent a note to a Japanese magazine in May saying that all of the hijackers wanted to return to Japan but wanted to reach an agreement with the Japanese government that they be tried without detention when they came home. One of the hijackers had already died in North Korea.
    On January 9, 1990, Yukio Yamanaka, head of a support group known for its aid to imprisoned student demonstrators, said that he had met with four of the seven hijackers living in Pyongyang during his visit which began on January 2. Tamiya said that the group had no interest in returning home to be arrested but added that he wanted to negotiate with the Japanese government.
    On June 23, 1990, the hijackers wrote a two-page letter to Mainichi Shimbun in which the group urged the Japanese government to start negotiations regarding their possible return to Japan. However, they said that they would not surrender only to be arrested in Japan.
    On June 13, 1992, five women rejected a Foreign Ministry order to give up their passports. The five were among six Japanese women who went to North Korea to marry the hijackers. The ministry ordered the five women in August 1988 to hand over their passports because they offended the country’s interests by having contacts with North Korean agents. The ministry did not seek the return of the sixth woman’s passport. The Association in Support of Humanitarian Return of Hijackers of Yodo Airliner called on the government to permit them to return to Japan without being subjected to criminal charges.