TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A Tokyo court convicted and sentenced a founder of the Japanese Red Army terrorist group on Thursday to 20 years in prison for kidnapping and attempted murder in a 1974 attack on the French Embassy in the Hague, court officials said.

The Tokyo District Court found Fusako Shigenobu, 60, guilty of kidnapping and confinement, as well as attempted murder in the 1974 case, court spokesman Tomoyuki Kushida said. Shigenobu was also convicted of passport law violations.

Shigenobu was arrested in western Japan in November 2000 after more than 25 years on the run, most of it in the Middle East. She had pleaded innocent to the kidnapping and murder charges.

The Japanese Red Army, a violent ultra-leftist group sympathetic to Palestinian causes, was formed by Shigenobu and fellow member Junzo Okudaira in 1971. It took responsibility for several international attacks in the 1970s, including the takeover of the U.S. Consulate in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1975.

The group is also suspected in the 1972 machine-gun and grenade assault on the international airport outside Tel Aviv, Israel, that killed 24 people. Shigenobu's husband died in the cross-fire...

...The National Police Agency says seven other members, including Okudaira, are still on the run...