A former Red Army Faction fugitive was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for his role in the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines jet to Pyongyang.
The Tokyo District Court found Yoshimi Tanaka, 53, guilty of hijacking the Boeing 727 and inflicting minor injuries on five of the people on board in what became widely known as the "Yodo-go incident," after the name of the airliner.
Judge Masazo Ogura said Tanaka bears a grave criminal responsibility for inflicting physical and mental damage on the passengers and crew of the jet as well as members of the victims' families.