'Hirata Makoto desu. Shuttō shite kimashita." (「平田信です。出頭してきました」"I am Makoto Hirata. I've come to give myself up").
Sure you are! said the first officer he spoke to, in effect. He thought it was an akushitsu na itazura (悪質ないたずら, a malicious prank). Never mind that Hirata was one of Japan's most notorious tōbōsha (逃亡者, fugitives), his photo on tehai posutā (手配ポスター, wanted posters) plastered all over the country in connection with his alleged role in crimes committed by the religious group Aum Shinrikyo in the 1990s.
How did he manage to elude a nationwide police dragnet for 17 years? Why, having done so, did he suddenly give himself up? The case is, as several commentators have noted, nazo darake (謎だらけ, full of riddles).
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