Ten Years in Prison for Murder Attempt on Prime Minister

Wakayama District Court sentenced ten years in prison to a defendant, Ryuji Kimura, who hurled an explosive device to then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during an election campaign in the city of Wakayama in April 2023. Although Kimura argued that he did not have intention to kill Kishida, the court recognized the significance of interfering election which consists an important basis of democracy. Kimura has not decided whether he would appeal to the upper court. 

Kimura, 24 years old at the time, threw a pipe bomb to Kishida when the prime minister was making a speech to support a candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party in a by-election of Wakayama 1st district of the House of Representatives in a building of a fishery port in the city. While Kishida managed to escape from the explosion, the bomb caused injury of an audience and a policeman guarding Kishida.

 

The court realized that the bomb was a handmade device which would scatter around with its fragments with explosion and had enough power to kill a person. Dismissing Kimura’s argument that the bomb did not have power to kill a person, the court found that Kimura could realize that the bomb could kill Kishida.

 

Kimura told about his motivation that he was frustrated with election system of Japan, which block the people under 30 years old from running for elections of the House of Councillors. Kimura once hoped to run for the election held in 2022, but he was not filed as a candidate. Kimura sued the government with argument of unconstitutionality of the related law, only for losing. Kimura explained his motivation as seeking of prominence.

 

The court focused on the impact on democracy. “The decision he made was extremely simplistic and he deserves being firmly accused,” concluded the court, labeling Kimura’s motivation for receiving public attention to his lawsuit against the government.

 

The court found Kimura to be guilty on five points, including murder attempt and violation of pubic offices election law. But it decided that the crime was not exceeding the limit of ten years in prison, stipulated in the rule on regulation for explosive devices. Considering no intention of harming others or disturbing election campaign, the court reduced the penalty from fifteen years in prison requested by the public prosecutors.

 

The case occurred nine months after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a gun shooter in his speech for a candidate in the Lower House election in Nara city. The police failed in avoiding the same kind of crime on incumbent prime minister during an election campaign. The two incidents revealed security vulnerability of Japan in election campaigns, in which a candidate or a very important person is exposed to the public. Along with disturbance on a campaign from other candidates in cyber space, it is a great concern how to protect a candidate from malicious attacks.

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