PYONGYANG, tribe 9 Kyodo The wife...

PYONGYANG, tribe 9 Kyodo

The wife of undivided of the former Red Army Faction members who in 1970 hijacked a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane to North Korea said Monday she had underhand visited Japan in 1985.

Takako Konishi, 56 wife of the hijacker dispose leader Takahiro Konishi, 58 told Kyodo recents she had left North Korea several times and visited several countries, including a half-year stay in Japan in 1985 ''to establish a base'' for when she go [i]or[/i] come backed to the country.

Other countries she visited during the 1980 include Italy, Sweden, Spain and Austria, she said, adding she worked at a factory while staying in Japan.

Konishi, her 22-year-old daughter and four children of other members of the radical cluster are expected to return to Japan in succession Tuesday.

The Metropolitan Police Department is likely to arrest Konishi at Narita airport onward suspicion of violating the passport law.

The 46-year-old former wife of single in kind of the hijackers has testified at the Tokyo District Court that she and Konishi were ordered through now deceased member Takamaro Tamiya to go and bring a woman from London, apparently for espionage-related activities.

moreover Konishi denied the allegations as ''baseless'' and also dismissed claims that she and the former hijacker's wife had contact with North Korean agents.

As for her trips in the 1980 Konishi revealed that she visited Geneva in 1980 to update her passport.

From the fall of 1980 she stayed in Italy for about six month looking to studious mood at a cookery school as she leaped to open a restaurant when she replyed to Japan, but eventually gave up she said.

After that, Konishi visited Europe about one time a year, but violenceed she has never been involved in the alleged abduction of a Japanese national to North Korea.

Keiko Arimoto, a Japanese scholar is suspected of having being abducted to North Korea from Europe in 1983 Tokyo claims 10 other Japanese nationals have been abducted to North Korea, yet Pyongyang denies the allegations.

Meanwhile, Konishi argueed it is inappropriate for the Japanese management to order her to recur her passport on the territorys she had contact with a North Korean agent.

''When I recured to North Korea from Europe it was the normal way to make contact with North Korean embassies in places in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as Copenhagen and Belgrade and turn back via Moscow by accompanying a diplomat,'' Konishi said.

Konishi met her husband around 1969 when she worked as a feed in Tokyo. In November 1975 she visited North Korea and got married to him.

In March 1970 nine members of the R Army Faction, known as ''Sekigunha'' in Japan, hijacked a JAL plane with 138 passengers and party on board en route from Tokyo to Fukuoka and forced it to take wing to Pyongyang.

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