Tokyo

DNA analysis of a dying old man, done after his death, has confirmed that he was Japan's most wanted fugitive, said Japanese police on Tuesday (Feb 27). The DNA test confirmed the man's confession when he was on the deathbed in a hospital last month. Satoshi Kirishima was wanted for decades and was a former member of a radical leftist group in Japan which was behind fatal bomb attacks in the 1970s. This means that Kirishima was wanted for nearly 50 years.

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"The person who died at the hospital on January 29 was confirmed to be Satoshi Kirishima himself", a Tokyo police spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.

Kirishima's bespectacled, smiling mugshot was a common sight outside police stations in Japan.

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His name, and the entire saga, hit the headlines in Japan again last month when a terminally ill man made a confession in a hospital outside Tokyo that he was Kirishima. The hospital immediately alerted the police, but the man died in a few days.

The Tokyo police have now sent five case files connected to Kirishima to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's office

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In one of those cases, Kirishima is accused of having planted a homemade bomb. The explosion in Tokyo's Ginza district blew away parts of a building in April 1975.

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Reports in local media suggest that police interrogated Kirishima shortly before his death. He mentioned details about his personal life and the extremist group which only he would have known, further cementing the conclusion that the man was indeed Kirishima.

In his younger days, he was a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front. The radical Leftist group was behind a series of fatal bomb attacks on companies. One such attack was aimed at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

"I want to meet my death with my real name," he reportedly told staff at the hospital before his death. 

(With inputs from agencies)