TOKYO Fusako Shigenobu, founder of the extreme leftist Japanese Red Army Group, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of attempted murder and illegal detention for a 1974 attack on the French Embassy in The Hague.

Shigenobu, 55, known as the "Empress" for her leadership of one of the world's most notorious extremist groups, entered the plea at the first hearing of her trial at the Tokyo district court. She pleaded guilty to using forged passports.

Dozens of supporters, young and old, turned up hoping for a glimpse of Shigenobu. Some recently published memoir, which she penned in a police cell in the form of a letter to her Lebanon-born daughter.

"I wanted to hear her thoughts from her own lips," said a khaki-clad Hirotsugu Kobayashi, 30, who described himself as a manual laborer. "The times no longer call for violent solutions, but her message is still relevant."

Mieko Yamada, 55, came with her 23-year-old Dg Keiko, armed with black-and-white snapshots of Shigenobu as a teenager.

"We were friends in high school," she said. "She was such an earnest girl, always standing up against discrimination and injustice.

"There are good terrorists and bad terrorists. She was a good, conscientious terrorist. She never had a hand in anybody's death."

Shigenobu was arrested last November outside a hotel in the city of Takatsuki, western Japan, after almost three decades of outwitting police across three continents.

She had been wanted internationally for allegedly masterminding the embassy attack, in which the ambassador was taken hostage in return for the release of an imprisoned comrade.

While the Japanese Red Army never succeeded in winning a large following at home, its leader was revered among left-wing activists for her charisma and commitment.

The group was born out of the 1960s anti-Vietnam War movement and advocated the destruction of capitalism. Its members fought at home against the presence of U.S. forces in Japan, then took their struggle overseas in the early 1970s.

Shigenobu, originally a member of another extreme leftist group, the Red Army faction, traveled to Lebanon in 1971 and founded the Japanese Red Army, which linked up with Palestinian extremists to become an implacable foe of Israel.

The group went on to become one of the world's most feared guerrilla organizations for its deadly and spectacular acts, from plane hijackings to hostage-taking, most of them in the 1970s.

It backed its rhetoric with a mix of violence and careful planning that kept members one step ahead of the international law enforcement agencies who pursued them for decades.

Among its acts was the 1972 attack on Israel's Lod Airport in which 26 people, including two Red Army members, were killed in a hail of machine-gun fire and grenade blasts.

After bombing a U.S. military facility in Naples, Italy, in 1988, the group conducted no major attacks and faded from the minds of many Japanese.

Shigenobu's arrest last year came as a surprise because she had been believed to be living in Lebanon.

Media reports said she had checked into the hotel in Takatsuki disguised as a man, but her distinctive habit of smoking cigarettes as if puffing on a pipe and blowing rings when she exhaled gave her away to local police.

Earlier this month, Shigenobu announced she was disbanding the group to seek new battles within the law, saying in a letter to supporters: "In that specific era and situation, our armed struggle represented people's demands," Reuters said.