Gang-Related Killing Of Japanese Mayor Shocks Nation

NAGASAKI, Japan, April 18 — The mayor of the southern Japanese city of Nagasaki died on Wednesday after being gunned down in what appeared to be a murky gang-related killing, shocking a nation where crime rates are low and shootings extremely rare.

The mayor, Kazunaga Ito, 61, who went by the name Itcho Ito in public life, had just finished giving a campaign speech and was on the street when he was shot twice in the back Tuesday night, according to Hirozumi Chiyoda, a spokesman for the Nagasaki Prefecture police. He died hours later from blood loss, Mr. Chiyoda said.

The police said the assailant was Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, a member of Japans largest organized crime group, the Yamaguchi-gumi. Mr. Shiroo was detained at the scene by members of Itos campaign staff and turned over to the police, who arrested him, Mr. Chiyoda said.

Nagasaki residents were left wondering whether the killing might be politically motivated. Local news reports suggested that it may have stemmed from a dispute between Mr. Shiroo and the city government over the handling of a traffic accident, but the accident apparently involved only a few hundred dollars worth of vehicle damage.

Mr. Chiyoda would not comment on a possible motive.

Mr. Ito, who was born in Nagasaki two weeks after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945, was an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons. He had also said that convicted war criminals should not be honored at the Yasukuni Shrine, a war memorial in Tokyo that has become a symbolic focus for conservative and nationalist feeling in Japan, as well as a lightening rod for criticism of Japan from abroad.

While violent crime in general is rare in Japan, there is a history of violent attacks by Japanese rightists, many with links to organized crime, against left-leaning politicians, particularly those who speak out against Yasukuni or the imperial family. In 1990, the previous mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, was shot and wounded after saying that the late Emperor Hirohito, Japans emperor during World War II, bore some responsibility for the war.

My honest belief is that the crime happened because Mayor Ito probably went too far in his peace activism, said Hirotami Yamada, secretary general of the Nagasaki Council of A-Bomb Sufferers, which opposes nuclear weapons. He said he put no store in the theory that the attack stemmed from a traffic accident.

On Wednesday, a former member of a rightist group was arrested in Tokyo and accused of throwing a firebomb at the offices of the countrys leading business newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, in an incident last July. That attack came after the paper published a report about documents showing that Hirohito had disapproved of the enshrinement of war criminals at Yasukuni.

In Nagasaki on Wednesday, television images showed citizens lining up at a city office to honor their slain mayor, who has held office since 1995 and was running for a fourth four-year term.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denounced the killing as a challenge to democracy and said he wanted a thorough investigation.

Murders, particularly those involving guns, remain very rare in Japan. Though crime rates have crept upward in the last decade, Japan remains one of the least violent countries in the world. Crime experts have credited Japans stringent gun controls and the nations relatively close-knit social fabric.

According to police statistics, only 1.5 percent of the murders committed in Japan in 2005 involved gun violence; in 2004, the figure was 2.5 percent. By contrast, two-thirds of the murders committed in the United States in 2004 were done with firearms, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Still, Japanese police are often criticized for doing too little to control either organized crime or the far right.

Japans peacefulness is an illusion, said Mr. Motoshima, 85, the former Nagasaki mayor who was wounded in 1990. The Japanese people must proclaim clearly and in a single voice that violence of all sorts is unacceptable.

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?