4 suspected spies arrested

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 10

4 suspected spies arrested

NZPA-AP Tokyo Tokyo police have arrested four Japanese men, including an employee at a United States air base, on suspicion of spying after one attempted to give documents to a Soviet official in a park on the outskirts of Tokyo, a police official said yesterday. News reports said the men also were suspected of providing technical documents to Chinese officials.

A Tokyo Metropolitan Police official said Hiromi Date, aged 62, employed as a counsellor at the China Technical Centre in Tokyo, was arrested when he met with V.B. Aksenov, aged 35, an official at the Soviet Trade Representa-

tive Office in Tokyo,, at a park in Musashino and tried to give him some documents. The police official did not describe the nature of the documents.

Following Date’s arrest, police searched the homes of three other Japanese and then arrested them as well, he said.

Arrested with Date were Hiroshi Osumi, aged 65, an employee in the technical library at the United States Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo, Masateru Tachibana, aged 59, and Sadao:Gotoh, aged 60, an employee at a trading company 7 doing business with China, the police official said.