THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
June 4, 2023 at 19:00 JST
Police on June 4 arrested former Upper House member Yoshikazu Higashitani, better known as YouTuber GaaSyy, on suspicion of repeatedly threatening celebrities, investigative sources said.
Higashitani, 51, arrived at Narita Airport east of Tokyo in the late afternoon from the United Arab Emirates, where he was staying.
It was not clear whether he was arrested before or after he landed in Japan.
“It was not a voluntary return (to Japan),” a source said.
Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department had obtained an arrest warrant for Higashitani in March over suspected violations of the law on punishment of physical violence and other acts.
The MPD and other parties have sent investigators to the UAE since May 22 and urged local authorities to extradite the YouTuber to Japan.
Higashitani is suspected of threatening an actor, an entrepreneur and a designer between February and August 2022 by suggesting he would damage their reputations on YouTube, the sources said.
He is also accused of obstructing the designer’s business by urging the individual to go out of business on the video-sharing platform, the sources said.
The YouTuber won his first seat in the Upper House in the election in July last year through the proportional representation portion.
He ran on the ticket of the NHK Party, which has since been renamed the Seijika Joshi 48 Party.
However, the chamber expelled him in March because he refused to leave Dubai and never once appeared in the Diet.
The MPD had asked Higashitani to submit to voluntary questioning since the end of last year.
But he refused on the grounds that he was staying abroad, among other reasons.
Higashitani was put on an international wanted list in April following the MPD’s request to the International Criminal Police Organization through the National Police Agency.
(This article was written by Keita Yamaguchi and Tabito Fukutomi.)
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Yoshikazu Higashitani arrives at Narita Airport on June 4. (Hikaru Uchida)
