Kozo Okamoto, Japanese militant who took part in a 1972 Tel Aviv airport attack, dies in Beirut
Kozo Okamoto, a member of the Japanese Red Army who took part in the 1972 Lod Airport attack that killed 26 people, has died in Beirut at age 78, the PFLP said.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Kozo Okamoto, the surviving gunman of the 1972 Lod Airport massacre carried out jointly by the Japanese Red Army and the PFLP, has died in Beirut at 78. Freed in a 1985 prisoner swap, he spent the rest of his life in Lebanon, which repeatedly refused Japan's extradition request.
A long time ago, a Japanese man named Kozo Okamoto helped attack an airport in Israel with guns hidden in suitcases, killing 26 people. He went to prison, was later traded for other prisoners, and lived the rest of his life in Lebanon, where he was treated like a hero. He just died there at age 78.
Analysis
A Lone Survivor's Long Shadow
The May 30, 1972 attack on Lod Airport outside Tel Aviv, carried out in coordination with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, killed 26 people and wounded dozens more. Three Japanese Red Army gunners collected checked bags containing rifles and grenades after arriving on a European flight, then opened fire in the terminal. Two of the three assailants were killed at the scene. Okamoto, wounded and captured, was sentenced to life in prison, the only one of the trio to face trial. His survival turned him into a singular figure, both a convicted terrorist to Israel and the United States, and a folk hero to Palestinian and Lebanese militant circles who adopted him under the name Ahmad al-Yabani, or Ahmad the Japanese.
Decades in Exile, Protected by the PFLP
Freed in 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian guerrillas, Okamoto slipped into Lebanon's chaotic civil war landscape, where Palestinian factions and leftist militias offered sanctuary. He was arrested once, in eastern Lebanon in 1997 alongside four other Japanese nationals, but the outcome split the group: four were returned to Japan in 2000, while Okamoto became, according to AP, the first person ever granted political asylum in Lebanon. He appeared publicly only rarely, most notably in May 2022 at a Beirut cemetery marking the 50th anniversary of the attack, where he gave the victory sign to supporters. The PFLP's farewell statement framed his life as one of sacrifice, saying he never compromised his principles.
An Unresolved Rift With Tokyo
Tokyo spent years demanding Okamoto's return, a request Beirut repeatedly rejected, and his death leaves the extradition file effectively moot. The case sat at the intersection of Japan's post-war pacifist identity and its citizens' involvement in overseas armed struggle, a tension that resurfaced with the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack by Aum Shinrikyo, an unrelated but contemporaneous reminder of domestic radical violence. The Popular Front itself remains a designated terrorist organization in several jurisdictions, and its current leader, Ahmed Saadat, is serving multiple life sentences in Israel for the 2001 assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. With Okamoto gone, the diplomatic irritant for Japan shifts from a wanted fugitive to a question of historical memory: how Tokyo balances its long-standing security partnership with Israel against the lingering presence, now ended, of one of its citizens in a militant stronghold.
Key points
- Kozo Okamoto died Thursday in Beirut at age 78 after a long illness, according to the PFLP
- He was the sole surviving gunman of the May 30, 1972 Lod Airport attack, carried out jointly with the PFLP, which killed 26 people
- Okamoto served 12 years in an Israeli prison before being freed in a 1985 prisoner exchange
- He received political asylum in Lebanon in 2000 after Japan sought his extradition, making him the first person granted asylum there
- Japan had repeatedly demanded his return, a request Beirut rejected throughout his decades of exile
