A 25-year-old man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to murder former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida with a homemade pipe bomb two years ago. The verdict was recently announced, drawing widespread attention from society.
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02-23, 2025According to reports, the defendant, Ryuji Kimura, attacked Fumio Kishida on April 15, 2023, in a small fishing port in Wakayama, a city in western Japan. The Wakayama District Court found him guilty of four charges, including violations of laws related to explosives and other weapons.
In the attack, Fumio Kishida himself was unharmed, but two other people sustained minor injuries. Kimura threw the explosive device at Kishida while he was participating in a campaign event and was subsequently arrested at the scene. This incident occurred less than a year after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a campaign event in July 2022, prompting deep reflection on the security issues surrounding Japanese political figures.
At the opening of the trial in early February this year, Kimura pleaded not guilty to the charge of attempted murder, claiming that he had no intention of killing Fumio Kishida. He expressed dissatisfaction with Japan's election system and stated that he only wanted to draw public attention by targeting prominent political figures. Prosecutors, however, argued that Kimura intended to kill the former Prime Minister, pointing out that the bomb Kimura threw had the potential to be lethal, and therefore requested a 15-year prison sentence.
Judge Keiko Fukushima stated that the attack on the sitting Prime Minister "caused a tremendous sense of anxiety in society." According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, the judge emphasized: "Severe punishment is necessary to prevent imitators, and the fact that he seriously disrupted the election system, which is the foundation of democracy, cannot be underestimated."
