Prosecutors on Monday sought a 15-year prison sentence for former Red Army Faction member Yoshimi Tanaka, who is on trial at the Tokyo District Court for the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines jet and other charges.

Tanaka's defense team is scheduled to deliver closing arguments Oct. 29.

Tanaka, 53, and eight other members of the Red Army Faction hijacked the Boeing 727 on March 31, 1970, according to the indictment.

The hijackers eventually forced the plane to land at Pyongyang on April 3, where they were granted political asylum. En route, the hijackers inflicted minor injuries on five of the 129 passengers and crew, prosecutors said.

"It was the first hijacking case in Japan and caused tremendous psychological and physical pain to many passengers and crew," prosecutors told the court Monday. "Given that it was an extreme crime ignoring and jeopardizing the rule of law and the principle of democracy, a severe penalty should be sought to forestall a recurrence of any similar acts."

They said Tanaka played an important role in the incident because he issued orders to other faction members.

The jet was named the Yodogo and the hijacking became widely known in Japan as the Yodogo incident.

During the trial's first hearing in December, Tanaka admitted hijacking the plane and injuring the five people. He offered an apology, saying the group took innocent people hostage and that their actions were "inexcusable."

Tanaka is also accused of throwing firebombs into a Tokyo police station and into the grounds of a neighboring junior high school in September and October 1969.

He was arrested in Cambodia in 1996 and eventually handed over to authorities in Thailand, who accused him of using counterfeit U.S. currency at a Thai beach resort.

After being acquitted of the counterfeiting charges in 1999, he was extradited to Japan in June 2000.

Known as Sekigunha in Japanese, the Red Army Faction was formed in 1969 and advocated global revolution through armed struggle.

A splinter group, the Japanese Red Army, broke away two years later and gained international notoriety in the 1970s through a series of terrorist acts abroad.