Kozo Okamoto, the Japanese terrorist behind the 1972 Lod Airport massacre who killed 26 tourists, has died in Beirut
On May 30, 1972, three Japanese Red Army terrorists opened fire and threw grenades inside Lod Airport, now Ben-Gurion International Airport, in an attack carried out with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The massacre killed 26 people, including 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico, and wounded about 80 others.
Okamoto was captured alive, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel. He was released in the controversial 1985 Jibril prisoner exchange after serving only 13 years and eventually settled in Lebanon, which granted him political asylum despite repeated Japanese requests for his extradition.
PHOTO: Kozo bowing to Nasrallah in Lebanon after his release from Israeli prison in 1985
