The report was troubling: in Japan, where immigration bureaucrats pride themselves on keeping tight controls on foreigners, a French fugitive with a long history of violent crime and suspected terror links slipped into the country and lived quietly as a car dealer.
The media accounts of Lionel Dumont's seamless entry into Japan -- so far not publicly confirmed by authorities -- have rattled Japanese security officials and raised questions about their ability to block infiltration by potential terrorists and other criminals.
The Dumont story comes as concerns rise in Japan that the country is considered a target for terrorist attack because of its solid support for the US-led invasion of Iraq. Tokyo has deployed hundreds of soldiers in southern Iraq on a humanitarian mission, despite public uneasiness about security.
Reflecting the jitters, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ordered authorities on Wednesday to boost security in public areas and at immigration points. The head of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, Takashi Oizumi, issued an urgent warning to his colleagues on Thursday.
"I want you to work at gathering information as if Japan were at risk of being the target of a terror attack tomorrow," he said during a briefing, without making a reference to Dumont.
In a country with a tiny foreign community -- less than 2 percent of the 127 million population -- and already in the midst of a crackdown on foreigner-committed crime, the reported ease of Dumont's entry is startling.
French authorities have long associated Dumont, a Muslim, with the violent Roubaix gang in northern France suspected of ties with Islamic radicals. He escaped a raid in 1996 that left some members dead, though French authorities say they don't have enough evidence to charge the group with links to terrorists.
He headed to Bosnia to fight in the army alongside fellow Mus-lims, was arrested and convicted of killing a Bosnian police officer during a robbery and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He escaped in 1999 and vanished.
Dumont was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison by a French court in 2001.
According to Japanese media accounts, Dumont used a fake French passport to enter Japan in July 2002 and worked as a car salesman in Niigata. He reportedly made several trips to Europe and Asia before leaving Japan the last time for Malaysia in September last year.
Dumont is believed to have provided money and equipment to Islamic radicals, including al-Qaeda, and may have been in Japan to set up a terror cell, the reports said. Kyodo News service reported yesterday that phone records show he continued to make phone calls to Japan after leaving.
Dumont was arrested in Germany in December and was extradited to France on Tuesday.
Many in Japan are shocked that a man with such a history could slip through controls. He was reportedly listed on Interpol's Web site, and Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted in the US of planning to bomb the Los Angeles airport during millennium celebrations, has been linked to the Roubaix gang.
The Asahi newspaper said Dumont evaded Japanese authorities by simply taking an alias.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese