Prisoner ‘became animal’

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 29

Prisoner ‘became animal’

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv Kozo Okamoto, the Japanese guerrilla freed by Israel, used to walk on all fours like a dog in his cell, eat from the floor, and once tried to circumcise himself, his former prison warden said in an interview. “His deterioration toward madness began about five years after he was jailed,” Mr David Peri told the “Yedioth Ahronoth” newspaper.

“One day he tried to circumcise himself. Later he refused to wash and we had to wash him forcibly twice a week.” Okamoto was the sole survivor of a Japanese Red Army squad that killed 26 people in an attack at Tel Aviv’s Lod airport in 1972. He was among 1150 proPalestinian guerrillas exchanged on May 20 for three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon. ' “He was capable of walk-

ing on all fours like a dog for 10 hours at a time,” the former warden of Ramie Prison said. “He asked to get his food on the floor. He became an animal.” Mr Peri said he believed Okamoto, who flew to Libya after gaining his freedom, was no longer a threat. Israel has told Japan it regretted Tokyo’s concern over Okamoto’s release. Tokyo had said it feared his release would encourage international terrorists.