Photo/Illutration Ryuji Kimura is driven to the Wakayama District Court in April 2023. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

WAKAYAMA—A man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on attempted murder, election law violation and other charges in an attack on then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in 2023 at the site of a campaign speech. 

Ryuji Kimura, 25, received the sentence at the Wakayama District Court on Feb. 19.

Kimura is accused of hurling a handmade explosive device close to Kishida during election campaigning at the Saikazaki fishing port in Wakayama on April 15, 2023.

“The defendant committed (the attack) at the venue of an election speech, which forms the foundation of democracy, and it cannot be disregarded that the election was seriously disrupted,” Presiding Judge Keiko Fukushima said.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year prison term.

While Kishida was not harmed, two audience members were injured.

At a hearing on Feb. 10, prosecutors argued that Kimura had the intent to kill, saying he was aware that the explosive device was capable of killing people and detonated it where many people had gathered.

They concluded the device was a lethal weapon mainly based on the results of an experiment that the National Police Agency’s National Research Institute of Police Science conducted by using a replicated device.

Drawing on the same experiment, the Feb. 19 ruling said, “The device (used in the attack) was powerful enough to scatter the metal fragments generated by the explosion a considerable distance while maintaining their deadly force.”

The ruling said common sense must have told Kimura that the device was highly likely to kill people, depending on how the fragments flew.

It recognized Kimura’s “willful negligence,” meaning that he did not care if someone died.

The ruling dismissed claims by defense lawyers that the defendant had no intention to harm people and he should be charged with criminal injury, not attempted murder.

“It was a very dangerous crime and created a great sense of anxiety in society as a whole because the sitting prime minister was targeted,” Fukushima said. “We need to impose harsh punishment, in part to prevent copycat criminals.”

(This article was written by Shinichi Kawarada and Yikai Zhou.)

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