The Kagoshima chapter of a national group supporting abduction victims and their families said Thursday that a Kagoshima man missing since the 1980s may have been abducted by North Korean agents.
The chapter identified the alleged abductee as Makoto Taneda, a native of Iriki, Kagoshima Prefecture.
Taneda went missing around May 1984 in Kyoto at the age of 34, after calling home to say he was going to change his job, the chapter said.
Taneda, who was single at the time, was working at a Korean barbecue restaurant in the city, having graduated from a high school in Kagoshima, the chapter said.
It added that he was a live-in employee.
The chapter claimed that Taneda's case is similar to that of Tadaaki Hara, an Osaka restaurant employee who was abducted from a beach in the city of Miyazaki in 1980 at the age of 43.
It declined to elaborate on this claim.
The national group will on Friday disclose a list of people it believes have been abducted by Pyongyang, according to the chapter. Taneda's name is reportedly on this list.
Hara's name appeared on a government list of 11 Japanese abductees submitted to Pyongyang during talks between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Sept. 17.