Police said Wednesday they have searched 10 locations, including the home of a 34-year-old assemblywoman in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, in connection with forged passports allegedly used by Fusako Shigenobu, the founder of the Japanese Red Army.
Shigenobu was recently indicted for her part in the 1974 seizure of the French Embassy in The Hague.
Police seized some 30 items from the locations in Tokyo and those in five other prefectures. Other places searched included a printing company in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, and the office of the People's Newspaper in Osaka's Minato Ward.
Metropolitan Police Department officials said the search covered locations used by people involved in the People's Revolution Party, an organ set up by the terrorist group in Syria in 1991.
It marked the fourth occasion that the police have carried out searches in connection with Shigenobu's alleged violation of the Passport Law.
Prosecutors are expected to indict 55-year-old Shigenobu today, when her detention period expires.
Shigenobu admitted during a hearing at the Tokyo District Court on Dec. 12 that she illegally used the names and family registers of other people.
She is suspected of obtaining one forged passport sometime around November 1997 and another around March this year. It is believed she used them to travel between Japan and other countries between December 1997 and September this year.
She was arrested in Osaka on Nov. 8, after 30 years on the run from the authorities. She was held on suspicion of conspiring with three comrades to confine the ambassador and 10 members of staff at the French embassy, as well as attempted murder during the 1974 incident, in which two policemen were wounded by gunfire.