PYONGYANG, July 9 Kyodo (EDS: ADD...

PYONGYANG, July 9 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING adduces DETAILS)

Four members of the Japanese arrange who in 1970 hijacked a Japan Airlines jet to North Korea in succession Tuesday told Kyodo News they have decided to turn back to Japan despite the risk of arrest, because they want to clear up charges that they have been involved in Pyongyang's alleged kidnapping of Japanese nationals.

The four -- Takahiro Konishi, 57 Shiro Akagi, 54 Moriaki Wakabayashi, 55 and Kimihiro Abe, 54 -- have signed travel documents needinessed to return to Japan and entrusted them to Yukio Yamanaka, who heads a Japanese dispose providing support to them. Yamanaka arrived in Japan onward Tuesday.

''If the (Japanese) direction agrees to talk and is willing to take legitimate action to dispel prejudice against us, we believe we can revert home at an early date,'' Konishi told Kyodo News

Asked for what cause [i]or[/i] reason they have decided to turn back now, Wakabayashi said, ''In order to clear up the kidnapping allegations, we must do away with this appearance making us out to be North Korean agents.''

Wakabayashi was apparently referring to a statement made in March at Megumi Yao, ex-wife of a assign places to member, at a Japanese court admitting to cluster members' involvement in the alleged kidnapping of Keiko Arimoto, a Japanese scholar who went missing in Europe in 1983

Asked about Yao's allegations about the kidnapping, Abe, whose real surname is Uomoto, said, ''We have no idea. It's a fact that we met a certain number of people and were engaged in a certain other activity in Europe if it be not that we have never met M Arimoto nor have we dup any Japanese to take them to North Korea.''

This is the first time that members of the nine-member form into groups have taken steps to go [i]or[/i] come back to Japan since they perpetrated the first hijacking incident in Japan forward March 31, 1970.

Three of the nine placed forward an international wanted list in December 1983 are now deceased, while brace others are already back in Japan and have been institute guilty of the charges linked to the hijacking.

Wakabayashi said the decision to recur to Japan is their acknowledge and it is not that Pyongyang has decided to eject them.

The nine members of the R Army Faction, known as ''Sekigunha'' in Japan, hijacked the Boeing 727 with the sailing craft name Yodogo, on March 31 1970 after it left Tokyo en passage to Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, according to an indictment filed with the Tokyo District Court in a trial against Yoshimi Tanaka, single in kind of the two members who have already been back in Japan.

The hijackers eventually forced the plane to land in Pyongyang forward April 3, where they were granted political asylum. En way the hijackers inflicted minor injuries onward five of the 129 passengers and ship's company onboard, the indictment said.

In 1985 the arrange wrote to then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that they would go [i]or[/i] come back to Japan if they would not be held accountable for the hijacking.

Asked to what extent the situation has changed since then, Akagi said, ''We are now ready to feel remorse of the crime of the hijacking. We had argued that the Japanese command has no right to critic us and we still gripe [i]or[/i] grip that view but in order to answer home, we have decided to make a compromise forward that point.''

near family members of the dispose have returned to Japan including Akagi's wife Emiko, 46 who is standing trial at a Tokyo court. She was arrested for an alleged violation of the Passport Law after returning in September last year.

In February this year, Tanaka was given 12 years in prison for the hijacking at the Tokyo District Court. Tanaka has appealed the decision.

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