How Thailand's Media Have Reported

Tanaka's Verdict

The Nation, one of Thailand's two English newspapers, reports in its June 24, 1999 edition as follows:

EX-TERRORIST CLEARED OF FAKE MONEY CHARGE
A FORMER Japanese terrorist was yesterday acquitted of a United States banknote counterfeit charge on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence against him.

However, Yoshimi Tanaka is to be extradited to Japan to face prosecution over his alleged hijacking of a plane in 1970 while he was a member of the Japanese Red Army.

Three Thais, who were co-defendants in the 42 month-long case, were also acquitted. Two other Thais - Somchai Janthong and Niyom Prasart - were each given a 45-month jail term for possession and use of fake US banknotes, the Chon Buri court said.

The Japanese Embassy launched the extradition request last month but some mandatory documents are needed first before the process can be considered. The embassy's spokesman said yesterday it hoped that the extradition could be processed as soon as possible.

"We have forwarded all the information to the Thai government; now we are waiting for an official reply," he said.

Once the verdict was read out and translated into Japanese, about 80 Japanese, including Tanaka's supporters, roared with joy. Some of his supporters were teenage girls wearing T-shirts figuring Tanaka's face, while many others carried banners saying "Not Guilty".

Some of Tanaka's supporters told the The Nation later that he could end up living in polical asylum in Vietnam, or he may choose to go back to Cambodia where he is permitted to stay. They added that another option available to Tanaka may be to go back to North Korea to see his Japanese wife, whom he met in North Korea, along with his two children.

Before the trial was over, Tanaka wrote in a letter to a Bangkok-based Japanese news agency that he was willing to return to Japan to face hijacking charges of his own volition, not under a Thai-Japanese extradition deal.

CLEARED TANAKA STILL FACES EXTRADITION

According to the verdict, Tanaka was acquitted because no substantial evidence, apart from a former Japanese partner from Cambodia who implicated Tanaka in the crime, was presented to the court.

Shogo Kodama, who was convicted on the same charge in a separate case and in July 1997 was sentenced to a jail term of two-and-a-half years, said he had wrongly implicated Tanaka because he had been forced to do so by US secret service agents who arrested him in Cambodia and spirited him to Thailand.

Tanaka, 50, had also been wanted in South Korea because he was an important link in the issue of how a plane hijacked by the Japanese Red Army was allowed to land at Kimpo Airport in South Korea before continuing to Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 30, 1970.

A South Korean Embassy source said he was quite disappointed that Tanaka was acquitted, despite the fact that his fingerprints were found on forged banknotes confiscated from Phnom Penh.

The U.S. secret service reportedly did not primarily want Tanaka as a suspect in the banknote counterfeit case, but rather to obtain information from him about the activities of North Korean officials in Cambodia, with whom Tanaka has been closely linked since 1970 after the landing of the hijacked plane in Pyongyang.

The US agency also wanted to investigate a report that the fake US bills used widely in Cambodia and the Thai toursit resort of Pattaya had been printed in North Korea, and distribued via a criminal syndicate known as Super K.

The court acquitted two Thai defendants - hotel waiters Somchai Nonsai and Prasong Phophet - because it believed that both men sincerely had no idea that the US banknote they exchanged for Bt225,000 - at the order of Somchai janthong, one of the two men convicted - were fakes.

According to the verdict, Somchai Janthong's confession after his arrest in January 1996 led to the arrest of Niyom Prasart, who was found in possession of a large number of fake US banknotes.

Lopphachai Chanachaichon, another acquitted defendant who wa a business partner of Kodama in Cambodia, was also found not guilty on the grounds of insufficient evidence, the verdict said.

Meanwhile, a diplomatic source said Ma Chol Su, head of Asia-Pacific affairs at the North Korean foreign ministry, arrived in Thailand on Tuesday to monitor the trial.

The source added that the three-man delegation's visit was also reportedly intended to boost the Bangkok-Pyongyan relationship, which was recently marred by an attempted abduction of a North Korean diplomat and his family by North Korean agents, with the help of two Thai immigration officers.
(Eng of the Nation's article)


Bangkok Post, the other English newspaper of Thailand, gives the following account on the case in its issue of June 24, 1999:

TERROR SUSPECT CLEARED OF FORGERY CHARGE
Tanaka to be held for extradition case

By Bhanravee Tansubhapol & Nussara Sawatsawang
Chon Buri

The provincial Criminal Court yesterday acquitted Yoshimi Tanaka, a Japanese Red Army suspect, who has been detained here for more than three years on US currency forgery charges.

But Mr. Tanaka is to remain in detention for at least another 30 days pending the prosecution's appeal and a court ruling on Japan's request for his extradition, Judge Viroj Tulaphan said yesterday.

Mr. Tanaka, 50, was arrested in March 1996 at Cambodian-Vietnamese border on charges of collaborating with five Thai and other foreigners to distribute 90 counterfeit US$100 banknotes (worth about 225,000 baht) in Pattaya earlier that year.

Mr. Tanaka is wanted in Japan, where he is accused of involvement in the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese aircraft to North Korea. In Bangkok, Suphat Chitranukroh, the Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesman, said Mr. Tanaka would be extradited under the 1929 Extradition Treaty because Thailand and Japan have no bilateral agreement on this matter.

But before meeting Japan's extradition request filed last month Thailand was waiting for a Japanese arrest warrant, court verdict and confirmation that in the future Tokyo would reciprocate by extraditing Thai criminals, if requested, he said.

The Thai court also needed confirmation Mr. Tanaka's offence was extraditable, that is non-political, he said.

Since Mr. Tanaka's extradition would be part of a political process, the government would consider the matter in light of Thai-Japanese relations after the court's decision, Mr. Suphat said.

Judge Viroj ruled that Mr. Tanaka was not involved in the distribution of the confiscated fake dollars, judging from the fact only one set of his fingerprints was found on one of the 1,238 seized banknotes, which Mr. Tanaka might have touched by accident.

In addition, when Mr. Tanaka was stopped at the border while travelling in a North Korean embassy vehicle with its Phnom Penh-based diplomats, the police did not find $400 in couterfeit notes which Mr. Tanaka was believed to be carrying.

"This shows there is no evidence that Mr. Tanaka was the owner of the (1,238) US dollar bills," the judge said.

Two Thai co-defendants, Somchai Chanthorn and Niyom Prasart, were sentenced to three years and nine months in jail each for the use and possession of counterfeit US dollars. They were also ordered to jointly reimburse the plaintiff a total sum of 225,000 baht.

Mr. Tanaka's lawyer, Santi Tiptamyae, said Thailand could consider extradting Mr. Tanaka while waiting for the prosecution's appeal since no bail is allowed in an extradition case.

However, the court will set the date for another hearing to establish whether Mr. Tanaka can be extradited.

Mr. Santi quoted Mr. Tanaka wanted to return to Japan although he would be punished. He was said to have expressed remorse for the hijacking.
(End of Bangkok Post's article)