Fusako Shigenobu

However, as Shigenobu had already served 810 days in prison, her sentence was reduced by time served to 17 years and Shigenobu's release was planned for 2022.

On 28 May 2022, Shigenobu was released from prison in Tokyo, met by a small crowd of supporters and a banner reading, "We love Fusako". Shigenobu commented that she will be focusing on her cancer treatment, explaining she will not be able to "contribute to society" given her condition, stating that she will continue to reflect on her past and "live more and more with curiosity." The Tokyo Metropolitan Police said that she will be placed under surveillance after her release.

Shigenobu filed another appeal, but on 15 July 2010, the decision was made to reject it and the sentence was confirmed.

Shigenobu filed an objection to the decision to reject the appeal, but on 4 August 2010, the Supreme Court of Japan's No. 2 Small Court (Yukio Takeuchi, Chief Justice presiding) reject the Shigenobu's final appeal, and the sentence of 20 years in prison was finalized.

In June 2009, in an extremely rare interview with the Sankei Shimbun, Shigenobu said of her past activities, "We were just university students. We thought we knew everything. We thought we were going to change the world. We didn't realize that in fact we were just causing trouble for everyone."

In December 2008, Shigenobu was diagnosed with both colon cancer and intestinal cancer and has had three operations to remove them. As of 2014 Shigenobu was detained in Hachioji Medical Prison where she was recovering from her medical procedures.

On 20 December 2007, the Tokyo High Court upheld the lower court's decision and dismissed the appeal.

After a lengthy trial, Shigenobu was sentenced to 20 years in prison on 8 March 2006.

In his final verdict, Judge Hironobu Murakami of Tokyo District Court found on 23 February 2006 that Shigenobu "played an important role in asking cooperating organizations to procure weapons and coordinate with countries that accept released compatriots." However, Murakami stated that there was no conclusive evidence of her involvement in the armed occupation of the embassy that resulted in the injury of two policemen, or in the intention of attempted manslaughter. Therefore the judge ruled that "a sentence of life imprisonment is too heavy," because while Shigenobu was a leader she did not control the entire organization. However, the judge did find Shigenobu guilty of the lesser charge of conspiring with others to attack the embassy, and sentenced her to 20 years in prison on 8 March 2006.

At a press conference before her sentencing in February 2006, her lawyers read out a haiku she had composed, reading:

In 2001, Shigenobu formally announced the dissolution Red Army from her prison cell and proclaimed the armed struggle over. She declared,

In 2000, Osaka Prefectural Police Public Safety Section 3 was investigating supporters of the Japanese Red Army and began to investigate a person who was in contact with a person who looked similar in appearance to Shigenobu.

Shigenobu was arrested on 8 November 2000, outside a hotel in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, after entering Japan illegally through Kansai International Airport using a forged passport that she obtained by impersonating another person some time between 1997 and 2000. Shigenobu was using the alias, "Fusako Okudaira," with which the arresting officers greeted her in order to gain her attention when they approached her. The same day she was transported to Tokyo to be interrogated by the Metropolitan Police Department although it was reported that she refused to answer any of her interrogators' questions. When Shigenobu spotted the waiting cameras, she raised her hands and gave the thumbs-up, shouting at reporters: "I'll fight on!"

Since 1991, Shigenobu had established the "People's Revolutionary Party" for the purpose of "armed revolution" in Japan with the front organization "The 21st Century of Hope" in charge of its public activities. It is also said that she used it as a foothold to plan cooperation with the Japanese Socialist Party. After that, she went into hiding in an apartment in Nishinari Ward, Osaka for a while.

Shigenobu was listed as a wanted person by the INTERPOL in 1974 after the French embassy hostage-taking in the Hague in which she was involved.

The prosecution charged her on three counts, the use of forged passport, aiding another member in the JRA in obtaining a forged passport, and attempted manslaughter by planning and commanding the 1974 occupation and hostage taking at the French embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands. Shigenobu pleaded guilty to the first two charges, but not guilty to the charge linking her to the 1974 embassy hostage taking. Among the witnesses that appeared in her court for the defense was Leila Khaled, known for the 1969 hijacking of TWA Flight 840, and currently a member of the Palestinian National Council.

On 1 March 1973 in Beirut, Lebanon, Fusako Shigenobu gave birth to her first and only daughter, Mei Shigenobu. The identity of the father remains a secret to the public with it being reported that he was a militant for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Fusako Shigenobu has since written a book about her relationship with her daughter.

In 1972, three members of the JRA carried out the Lod Airport massacre at Lod Airport in Israel at Shigenobu's instigation.

In February 1971, she and Tsuyoshi Okudaira went to the Middle East to create international branches of the Red Army Faction. Upon arrival, she soon split with the Red Army Faction in Japan due to both geographical and ideological distance, as well as a personal conflict with the new leader, Tsuneo Mori. The Red Army went on to link up with the Maoist Revolutionary Left Wing of the Japanese Communist Party to form the United Red Army. Upon hearing about the internal purge the United Red Army carried out in the winter of 1971–1972, Shigenobu recalls her shock and sorrow. She and Okudaira wrote My Love, My Revolution (わが愛わが革命) as a response, the title of which was a reference to Mitsuko Tokoro's influential essay collection My Love and Rebellion.

After high school, Shigenobu went to work for the Kikkoman corporation and took night courses at Meiji University. She eventually received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy and in History. She joined the student movement that was protesting the increase of tuition fees. In 1966, she joined the New Left group the Communist League, better known as the "Second Bund," and in 1969 she became a leading member of the group's "Red Army" splinter faction, which would eventually evolve into a separate group called the Japanese Red Army.

Fusako Shigenobu (重信 房子, Shigenobu Fusako, born 28 September 1945) is a Japanese communist activist and former founder of the disbanded militant group Japanese Red Army (JRA).

Shigenobu was born on 28 September 1945 in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo. Her father served as a major in the Imperial Japanese Army and was dispatched to Manchukuo. Prior to his military service, he was a teacher at a terakoya (寺子屋) (or temple school) for poor village children in Kyushu.