A court has convicted a man who threw a homemade pipe bomb at Japan’s former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a 2023 campaign event, sentencing him to 10 years in prison.
The Wakayama District Court said in the ruling on Wednesday that Ryuji Kimura, 25, was aware of the potential for a fatality in his attack, according to Japan’s Kyodo News agency. The ruling described the attack as a serious challenge to democracy and said it posed a significant danger to many people, according to Kyodo.
Kimura was found guilty of attempted murder in the April 15, 2023 attack on Kishida at a small fishing port in the western city of Wakayama. He was also charged with four other crimes, including violations of laws on explosives and other weapons.
Kishida was unharmed in the attack, which came less than a year after former premier Shinzo Abe was assassinated in July 2022 on the campaign trail.
“Severe punishment is needed to prevent copycats, and it cannot be underestimated that he has seriously disrupted the electoral system, which is the basis of democracy,” Judge Keiko Fukushima said, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Kimura, at an opening session of the trial in early February, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, saying he did not intend to kill Kishida. He said he was dissatisfied with Japan’s election system and that he only wanted to get public attention by targeting a famous politician.
Prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence while Kimura’s defence team had argued for three years because he denied intending to kill Kishida, the reports said.
At hearings during the trial, Kimura’s lawyers said his “purpose was to gain [public] attention”, so his charge should be “inflicting injury” not attempted murder, NHK said.
However, prosecutors reportedly called the incident a “malicious terror act” and said the attacker knew his explosive was lethal.
Gun-related crime is rare in Japan because of strict gun control laws, but there have been a series of high-profile knifings and other attacks using homemade guns and explosives.
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