Kozo Okamoto, a participant in the deadly terrorist attack at Lod airport in 1972, died in Beirut.

On May 30, 1972, Okamoto flew to Israel from Rome with two accomplices, also Japanese citizens. Having received the checked luggage, they took weapons from the suitcases and opened fire. The terrorist attack killed 26 people and injured 80. 17 of the dead were pilgrims from Puerto Rico.

Okamoto was the only one of the terrorists who managed to survive. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military tribunal, but was released in 1985 as part of the Jibril deal, in which three soldiers captured in Lebanon were exchanged for 1,150 terrorists.

He subsequently received political asylum in Lebanon as “a member of the resistance to the Israeli occupation who was tortured in Zionist prisons.”