Japanese police turned away one of the nation's most wanted fugitives when he tried to surrender at Tokyo police headquarters on New Year's Eve after nearly 17 years on the run, reports said Tuesday.
A police officer at the main entrance of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police thought it was a bad joke when Makoto Hirata, a former member of the Aum Supreme Truth doomsday cult, responsible for the 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway, showed up.
According to major media, he approached the officer around 11:35 pm Saturday and said: "I am Makoto Hirata. I am turning myself in."
But the officer dismissed him as a fake and urged Hirata to go to a local police station some 700 metres (yards) away, said the Asahi Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun newspapers. (AFP)
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