Japan's top court upheld death sentences Friday for two former Red Army leaders involved in 17 murders that stunned the nation in the early 1970s.
The Supreme Court approved the death penalties for Hiroko Nagata and Hiroshi Sakaguchi and upheld a 1986 Tokyo High Court sentence of 20 years in prison for Yasuhiro Uegaki, a lower-ranking Red Army member convicted of eight counts of murder.The prosecution argued that the three were involved in the killings of 14 fellow radicals after "revolutionary kangaroo trials" convicted them of not obeying the group's ideology or of trying to quit.
Most of the victims were beaten, tied up and left without food to die in freezing temperatures. Others were tortured and hanged.
At the time, Rengo Sekigun (United Red Army) members were moving from one mountain hideout to another in a desperate attempt to elude police between August 1971 and February 1972.
The chase climaxed when police raided a mountain villa in Nagano Prefecture, 100 miles north of Tokyo, where five Red Army radicals had held a woman hostage for 10 days.