June returnee who lived in North with hijackers faces passport arrest

Police obtained an arrest warrant Thursday for a Japanese man who has been living in North Korea with Red Army Faction hijackers and who is reportedly arranging to return to Japan as early as June.

Kuniya Akagi, 52, from Kumamoto Prefecture, is the brother-in-law of Shiro Akagi, one of the Red Army Faction fugitives wanted in the March 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines jetliner to Pyongyang, the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Police plan to put him on an international wanted list through Interpol on suspicion that he traveled to North Korea in the 1980s when visiting the country was banned under Japan's passport law. Shiro Akagi is already on an international wanted list for the hijacking.