Japan Hijacking Defused ‘Perfectly’ : Asia: Premier praises police actions to end crisis. Suspect apologizes for taking jet passengers hostage.

As Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama expressed pride Thursday in the successful handling of a jumbo-jet hostage crisis, Japan continued to ponder what really compelled a 53-year-old “salary man” to become a hijacker.

The takeover of a Boeing 747 All Nippon Airways jetliner with 365 people on board, which ended with a lightning police assault at dawn Thursday, was carried out by Fumio Kutsumi, who has been on sick leave from a Tokyo bank, police said.

Kutsumi, a section chief in the general planning department of Toyo Trust & Banking Co., said he was sorry for what he had done but refused to explain why he did it, police said.

The bank said Kutsumi’s ailments included a “nervous disorder” and asthma.

Bank President Nobuyoshi Takeuchi, in a typically Japanese response, apologized on behalf of the bank and Kutsumi for the trouble he caused.

“I had heard that he was seriously ill, but I can’t believe he has done something so outrageous,” Takeuchi added.

At a Thursday afternoon news conference, Murayama basked in the glow of the successful rescue operation, which may help dispel an image of incompetence that built up around his administration, in part from its slow response to January’s devastating Kobe earthquake.

“We were trying to protect the safety of the passengers above all else while also trying to arrest the criminal,” Murayama said. “Preparations went perfectly. . . . Thanks to everyone, we were able to carry out the best possible measures.”

Kutsumi hijacked the airplane on a flight from Tokyo to the northern city of Hakodate by brandishing a sharpened screwdriver.

During the nearly 16-hour drama, he was believed to be a member of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, which has been accused of the March poison gas attack in the Tokyo subways that killed 12 and afflicted more than 5,500.

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Along with claiming to have a bomb on board, Kutsumi said he had a plastic bag of sarin, the deadly toxin used in the subway attack.

He had no bomb, but police said Thursday that they were still investigating the contents of a vinyl bag Kutsumi had carried.

Kutsumi was also reported to have said early in the hijacking that he was acting to win freedom for imprisoned Supreme Truth leader Shoko Asahara. But he later denied the statement.

At one point during the hijacking, Kutsumi told a flight attendant that he suffered from AIDS.

When a team of about 20 police officers stormed the plane, they believed--but were not 100% certain--that there was only one hijacker.

Kutsumi was overpowered within three minutes of the assault’s launch, after a brief struggle in the passenger cabin that left him with a minor gash on his head, police said. (None of the crew or passengers suffered serious injuries during the incident.)

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Police said Thursday that they had no evidence linking Kutsumi to the cult, and they remained uncertain of his motive.

Japan has been deeply shaken by the subway attack and subsequent disclosures about the Supreme Truth cult.

Supreme Truth, which claimed 10,000 members in Japan, is also accused of carrying out a deadly gas attack in the central Japan city of Matsumoto last year, plus kidnapings and murders of dissident members and cult critics.

About 200 members have been arrested, some on serious charges and others for minor offenses that appeared to serve as pretexts to take them into custody.

“A sense of anxiety, a gloom associated with Aum Supreme Truth, hangs over our society,” Asahi Shimbun, a leading newspaper, editorialized Thursday. “The reputation that Japan is a safe society must not be tainted further.”