Friday, April 27, 2007
Police said they believe the time when the two children were abducted to North Korea was mid-June 1974.
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
TOKYO -- The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department obtained an arrest warrant Thursday for the leader of a group of North Korean agents on suspicion of abducting two Saitama Prefecture children to North Korea in 1974, the police department said.
Yoko Kinoshita, a 59-year-old woman who was a board member of a trading company in Tokyo, is believed to have masterminded the abduction of the children of Hideko Watanabe, who is believed to have been murdered.
Kinoshita reportedly is living in North Korea under the name Hong Su Hye, and the Tokyo police department will soon ask Interpol to put her on its wanted list.
According to the police department, Kinoshita instructed a 55-year-old woman to abduct the two children -- Kiyomi and Tsuyoshi, then 6 and 3, respectively -- in mid-June 1974. The woman was tasked with confining and taking care of the children.
Kinoshita was a board member of Universe Trading in Tokyo at that time. The company closed around November 1978.
Kinoshita left Japan in May 1979 for Hong Kong, and her whereabouts had been undiscovered. But it was found out this year that during between 2000 and 2002, she telephoned an acquaintance in Japan asking for money.
It is believed that Watanabe, 32 at the time she was last seen, was murdered in December 1973, immediately after her husband disappeared.
What happened
Suspicious radio signals were intercepted by police communication facilities late at night in mid-June 1974, when the two children allegedly were abducted on board a spy boat to North Korea from a beach in Obama, the Tokyo police department said.
Police said they had determined the time and place that the children were abducted because the interception date and time conformed to the statement by a person related to Universe Trading who told police details of the abduction.
Police believe the time when the children were abducted was mid-June 1974, based on the statements by former employees at Universe Trading, who said Kinoshita used to leave the beach at Obama for North Korea by spy boat, and that the woman who took care of the children was missing until mid-July 1974.
Police analyzed records of radio signals at police communication facilities in the areas along the Sea of Japan and found that suspicious signals were transmitted off the beach at Obama late at night at almost the same time as the abduction.
Another report
According to the police, the woman looking after the children also told people related to the company she waited until nighttime to put the children on the spy boat.
Police assume the radio signals were communications between the crew of the spy boat and others including the woman looking after the children, who was waiting on the beach with the children.
The woman is living in Tokyo with her 58-year-old husband, who also was an employee of Universe Trading. Police said she has been refusing to answer questions.