Ex-Aum Shinrikyo fugitive Makoto Hirata stayed on the run for 17 years in part because he feared he might be wrongfully charged in the 1995 shooting of the National Police Agency chief if he turned himself in, the cultist's girlfriend testified in court Monday.
The woman, a former Aum member whose name has been withheld, harbored Hirata for the 17 years he was on the run. She told the Tokyo District Court that the pair decided to avoid turning themselves in until after the statute of limitations for the shooting ended in 2010.
Word spread soon after the shooting of Takaji Kunimatsu, who was seriously wounded, that Hirata might have been behind the ambush. No arrest was ever made in the crime.