A man was arrested after throwing several suspected gasoline bombs at the headquarters of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) yesterday and ramming his van into a fence outside the prime minister’s office, police said.
No injuries were reported in the incident, which came just more than a week before a general election in which new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba hopes to shore up his mandate.
The man, identified by police as Atsunobu Usuda, 49, of Saitama was arrested on the spot on charges of obstructing the performance of official duties, although additional charges can be added later.
Photo: EPA-EFE / JIJI PRESS
Although the motive for the attack was not immediately clear, Japanese media reports cited social media posts believed to be Usuda’s, in which he complained about the sums of money required to run for office under Japanese law, implying that Usuda had political ambitions.
The media reports also quoted unidentified sources as saying Usuda had participated in protests against nuclear plants. Usuda was not immediately available for comment.
At about sunrise yesterday, “he approached the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party in a vehicle, got out and threw what appeared to be Molotov cocktails,” a Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman said.
“He also drove into the road in front of the prime minister’s office, crashing into a fence to prevent vehicles from entering, and then threw what appeared to be a smoke bomb towards police officers after getting out of the car,” she added.
Japan Broadcasting Corp reported that the five or six Molotov cocktail-like objects hit a riot police vehicle, but the fire was quickly extinguished and no one was injured.
Several plastic tanks usually used to carry liquids were found in the man’s small white vehicle, the Asahi Shimbun and other media outlets reported.
The prime minister’s office is about a 15-minute walk from the LDP headquarters in central Tokyo.
Images from the aftermath of the incident showed a dark blue riot police van whose front section was partly burned away, as firefighters and police officers gathered at the scene.
“Democracy must never succumb to violence,” Ishiba said while campaigning in southern Kagoshima Prefecture, local media reports said.
“This happened during the election campaign, but we will do everything to ensure that elections and democracy are not destroyed by violence,” the prime minister said.
Japan is to hold a general election on Sunday next week in a test for Ishiba, who took office after winning the LDP’s leadership vote last month.
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS