A judge who held the power of life or death over a convicted member of the United Red Army, a Japanese terrorist group, following a 10-day fatal standoff with police stayed in touch with the man he believed would find redemption by serving a life prison sentence and touchingly bequeathed him his wristwatch when he died.

Half a century has passed since the Asama Sanso Incident, which involved police laying siege to a mountain lodge near Karuizawa in Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, following a bloody purge by the group that left 12 of its members dead.

Masakuni Yoshino, who at the time held a senior position in the group, is still in prison, having been incarcerated since 1983. Two riot police members were killed in the ensuing standoff that raged Feb. 19-28 in 1972.

For Yoshino, now 73 years old, the well-worn wristwatch with a black leather band stands as a symbol of his vow to atone for his crime.

The watch belonged to Toshihiko Ishimaru, the presiding judge at Yoshino’s first trial, who died in 2007. 

Anti-Vietnam War sentiment was reaching its height among students in university campuses across Japan when Yoshino entered Yokohama National University.

At the time, Yoshino felt disgust at social regimes “built on the sacrifices of the people in Vietnam as well as the working underclass in Japan.”

He threw himself into the “communist revolutionary” movement.

On Feb 19, 1972, five members of the United Red Army seized a mountain lodge called Asama Sanso in the resort town of Karuizawa.

They took the manager’s wife hostage and barricaded themselves in the lodge, which police then surrounded. The standoff continued until Feb. 28, during which two riot police officers were killed.

After the siege, it was learned that the hostage-takers had killed 12 of their own in an earlier bloody purge in Gunma Prefecture.

Yoshino was arrested for his involvement in the hostage crisis, the Gunma massacre and other incidents.

He was accused of involvement in the deaths of 17 people, including his lover, and charged with murder, abandonment of a corpse and illegal confinement, among other crimes.

Tsuneo Mori, who held absolute power over the group, committed suicide in prison.

His No. 2, Hiroko Nagata, was sentenced to death but died in prison.

Ishimaru sentenced Yoshino to life imprisonment, concluding he was subjugated to Mori and Nagata and the Gunma incident “was a blood-soaked purge that had no connection to the ‘revolutionary’” activities that had defined the defendant’s life in the group.

Ishimaru decided against the death sentence in light of Yoshino’s position and the power relationship in the group.

“I do not take someone’s life in the name of the law. I want the defendant to devote the rest of his life to atone for his crimes,” Ishimaru said after the ruling.

Prosecutors appealed the ruling to the Tokyo High Court, but it upheld the lower court decision and Yoshino’s conviction was finalized.

It wasn’t until 1992, three years after Ishimaru retired, that the lives of the two men intersected again.

Ishimaru presented a Bible to Yoshino via the convict’s parents.

After that, they got into the annual habit of exchanging Christmas or New Year’s greeting cards.

Around 2000, Ishimaru began sending cards with a message in which he expressed his hopes that Yoshino would gain temporary release.

“If there is anything I can do for you, I will help you in anything,” he penned in a 2002 Christmas card.

Ishimaru’s wife said her husband was always delighted to receive a letter from Yoshino and learn he “is doing great.”

Ishimaru died on April 1, 2007, at the age of 82.

About five months later, Yoshino heard from his mother that Ishimaru’s widow had sent him a wristwatch that her husband loved to wear.

Yasuo Oizumi, 73, who knew Yoshino since they were children and has written about the siege, said, “Without the ruling, Yoshino may never have found meaning of his life afterward.”

Yoshino continued to reflect on his crimes by repeatedly going over the court ruling and his exchanges with Ishimaru.

He eventually came to a turning point.

“It seems to me, the revolutionary movement in which I was involved was not an organized movement to reform society. Rather, it was a challenge aiming for self-destruction, in order to keep myself from guilt toward the more vulnerable, to free myself from the feeling of stigmatization by the fact that I end up staying alive.”

Yoshino, in a written reply to questions from an Asahi Shimbun reporter, said, “In order to repay my debt to Ishimaru, I want to be rehabilitated into society and live my life with repentance.”

The wristwatch remains in the hands of Yoshino’s lawyer, who is also his legal sponsor.

Ishimaru in his will said he wanted Yoshino to wear the watch when he is released from prison.

Yoshino is waiting for the day he can wear the precious timepiece.