The last organized visit to the tombs of Richard Sorge and Hotsumi Ozaki, who were hanged in 1944 for relaying top-secret military information to the Soviet Union, will take place Saturday at a cemetery in Fuchu, western Tokyo, organizers said.

Relatives and those interested in what was one of Japan's most spectacular espionage cases have made annual visits to the tombs for the last 25 years. However, organizers decided this year's visit would be the last, following the death of Ozaki's younger brother, Hotsuki, in September last year, said Sadao Tanabe, one of the organizers.

In what later became known as the Sorge Incident, Sorge, a leading German newspaper correspondent, and Ozaki, a political commentator and journalist, along with three others were arrested in October 1941 shortly before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, on suspicion of being the principal figures in a spy ring directed by Soviet military intelligence in Moscow. Ozaki, who had contacts with members of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe's inner circle, was accused of relaying, among other things, an assurance that Japan would not attack the Soviet Union in 1941.

Ozaki later became a symbol of Japanese opposition to the war, and starting in 1975 supporters made annual visits to the tombs on Nov. 7, the day the two were hanged.

Interest in the Sorge Incident has been waning, however. A group studying the case disbanded after publishing its last journal in May.

During the visits, Hotsuki gave a tour of the Tokyo metropolitan cemetery that houses the tombs, giving a detailed account of the incident.

Tanabe, who was also a member of the study group, said participants had hoped to continue the annual visits to the tombs, but the death of Ozaki's brother has made it impossible.

"I would like each member to pay individual visits to the tombs after the last visit," he said.