A 25-year-old man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for the attempted murder in 2023 of then Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the Kyodo news agency reported.

The court in the western city of Wakayama found that the man intended to kill Mr Kishida and others on April 15, 2023 when he threw a homemade bomb at the then-premier.

This happened when Mr Kishida was prepared to give a speech in support of a candidate of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in local elections.

Mr Kishida was unharmed by the explosion, which slightly injured a police officer and a bystander.

“Targeting a serving prime minister caused significant anxiety to the society as a whole,’’ Kyodo quoted Judge Keiko Fukushima as saying.
Prosecutors had been looking for a 15-year sentence.

The man was also found guilty of violating explosives and firearms regulations as well as violating the public offices election law by forcing the cancellation of an election event, Kyodo reported.

The 25-year-old man denied that he intended to kill anyone and said his actions were an attempt to bring attention to his dissatisfaction with Japan’s electoral system.

He said that he did that to create a commotion at an event attended by a major politician.

Just over a year earlier, Kishida’s predecessor Shinzo Abe was shot dead in the street during an election campaign speech in the old imperial city of Nara.

Japan is considered one of the safest countries in the world and has extremely strict gun laws.

(dpa/NAN)