Tokyo police arrested six people Friday in connection with three shooting incidents targeting offices of Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo and Osaka, as well as a shooting at a teachers' union office in Hiroshima, for which a rightist group claimed responsibility.
Ichiro Murakami
Police arrested Ichiro Murakami, 54, chairman of a firm that manufactures synthetic resin products in the city of Gifu, and five others in connection with the shooting at the cult's facilities in Tokyo on May 29 and in Osaka on June 13, and against the union office on June 27.
No one was injured in any of the attacks, but the six are suspected of destroying property and violating firearms laws.
Although Murakami initially indicated he was involved in the incidents, he later denied the charges, sources said. The other five have owned up to some of the allegations, they added.
The other five suspects were identified as Tatsuya Hattori, 40, a company employee from Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture; 32-year-old Ryuji Nakamura of Yokohama, an antiques dealer's assistant; Takahiro Azabu, a 38-year-old teacher at a computer school from the town of Ginan, Gifu Prefecture; antiques dealer Fumio Nonoyama, 52, of Yokohama, and 46-year-old company employee Haruhiko Hayamizu, of the town of Yanaizu, Gifu Prefecture.
All are members of a sword club chaired by Murakami, according to investigators. Hattori, Nonoyama and Hayamizu are directors of the group, while Nakamura headed its youth unit and Azabu was secretary to the chairman, investigators said.
In 2001, Murakami was among activists who landed on the Senkaku Islands, a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are at the center of a dispute between Japan, China and Taiwan. China calls the islands the Diaoyu, while Taiwan calls them Tiaoyutai. Murakami was questioned by Japan Coast Guard officials at the time.
Police also searched about 90 locations nationwide, including Murakami's home, in connection with the incidents. One handgun was confiscated from a car owned by Hayamizu, police said.
Marks on the bullets in all three incidents are virtually the same, and police said they will examine the handgun found in Hayamizu's car to determine whether it was the weapon that was used.
After each of the three incidents, a man called the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to claim responsibility, saying he represented a rightist group that has also laid claim to attacks and issued threats against North Korean-affiliated groups in Japan.
Investigators said they learned that suspicious vehicles seen in the vicinity of the shootings at the Tokyo Aum facility and in Hiroshima were owned by two of the suspects. This and other information led police to Murakami and the other five, they added.
A total of 23 incidents in 10 prefectures against offices of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun), as well as the offices and homes of lawmakers, government officials and several other organizations, occurred over a one-year period. Investigators said they suspect Murakami and the others are also involved in a number of other incidents.
The incidents started in November 2002, when bullets and threatening letters from a group calling itself "Chosen seibatsu-tai," which roughly translates into "the corps to punish Korea," were mailed to the Tokyo headquarters of Chongryun and the Social Democratic Party.
In January, a bullet was fired at the Nagoya branch of Chogin Chubu Credit Union, a financial institution that serves the North Korea-affiliated community in Japan. In late July, a .38-caliber bullet was found inside Chongryun's Niigata office and a homemade bomb was left near a Korean-operated bank in the same city.
In September, an explosive device was found in the garage of Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka, a key official involved in formulating Japan's diplomatic policies concerning North Korea. The same month, a letter containing a bullet was mailed to the office of Hiromu Nonaka, a former Liberal Democratic Party secretary general.
Similar letters were sent to other politicians -- scandal-tainted ex-Lower House member Muneo Suzuki, current Lower House Speaker Yohei Kono and Koichi Kato, another ex-LDP secretary general.
Staff at Kato's office, in the city of Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, expressed relief that a number of suspects had been arrested.