Hidemitsu Matsumoto, 42, an unemployed man who resides in Fukuoka’s Higashi Ward, was arrested on suspicion of murder and violation of the swords and firearms control law, Fukuoka prefectural police announced on June 25.
The victim, Kenichiro Okamoto, 41, who worked for Tokyo-based Internet security provider Sprout Inc., was also anonymously posting a well-read blog under the user name Hagex.
Okamoto, who lived in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, was visiting Fukuoka to give a lecture as Hagex at a business startup support center, which is sited in a former elementary school building in the city’s Chuo Ward.
Matsumoto was quoted by police as saying, “I held a grudge against him over Internet (exchanges),” and “I thought I would kill him."
According to police, Matsumoto stabbed Okamoto numerous times with a 16.5-centimeter knife in a men’s restroom in the lecture venue on the night of June 24., killing him.
As the suspect repeatedly stabbed the victim about the neck and chest, police believe the attacker had a strong murderous intent.
Police believe the two had never met in person, but they are investigating a possible connection over the Internet.
Under the name of Hagex, Okamoto had posted a number of blog entries about an infamous Internet troll, believed to be Matsumoto. Hagex once condemned the troll for “repeatedly posting slanderous remarks on the Internet.”
Police believe that Okamoto was ambushed around 8 p.m. when he entered the men’s restroom right after concluding his talk, which started from 5:30 p.m. on the day.
Matsumoto fled the scene on a bicycle, but turned himself in at a police box in Higashi Ward at around 10:50 p.m.
The officials include Nobuhisa Sagawa, 60, former director-general of the ministry’s Financial Bureau, officials of the office said on May 31.
Prosecutors of the office’s Special Investigation Department also decided not to indict ministry officials who are accused of breach of trust concerning the heavily discounted sale of the land in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, to Moritomo Gakuen in 2016, they added.
The ministry had admitted that its officials altered 14 official documents about the transaction after the sale of the state-owned land to the Osaka-based school operator came to light in February 2017.
It had also said the alteration was made to maintain consistency with remarks made by Sagawa and other officials in the Diet.
In the alteration, the ministry’s officials deleted the name of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s wife, Akie, names of politicians and descriptions such as “the special nature of this case.”
The prosecutors have apparently decided that the deleted descriptions were only part of the documents and that the core portions, such as sales price and date, were retained.
Meanwhile, when the ministry sold the land to Moritomo Gakuen in June 2016, it discounted garbage removal costs of 819 million yen (about $7.5 million) and other small expenses from the land’s appraised value of 956 million yen, and sold it for 134 million yen.
Because of the sharp discount, some ministry officials have been accused of breach of trust for inflicting financial damage on the state. The officials include Hidenori Sakota, 58, who was the director-general of the Financial Bureau at the time of negotiations for the sale.
In November 2017, the Board of Audit released its own estimate that showed that the volume of garbage estimated by the ministry could be lowered by up to 70 percent, and said that the rationale for the deep discount was insufficient.
Beijing's recent decision to transfer administrative control of its coast guard from civilian to military authority from July is causing headaches for Japan.
Given China's tradition of using the coast guard to patrol areas to which it lays territorial claims, the move is being viewed as worrying and possibly significant.
A sweeping government overhaul announced by Beijing last week means that the coast guard will become part of the People’s Armed Police Force, which is under the direct control of China’s Central Military Commission. This effectively puts President Xi Jinping in charge of the coast guard.
In recent years, China Coast Guard vessels have intruded at least a few times a month into Japanese territorial waters around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
The incidents spiked sharply after a flare-up in the long simmering territorial row. China also claims the islands, which it calls Diaoyu Islands.
Tokyo and Beijing have sought to avoid a situation that leads to an unintended military clash.
The China Coast Guard was previously under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security.
The National People’s Congress, which approved the restructuring during a June 22 session, said the coast guard will “fulfill its law enforcement responsibility to maintain China’s maritime interests” with patrols to crack down on criminal activity and violations of maritime law, to conserve marine ecology and to manage fisheries.
It remains unclear, however, how its official authority will change under the reorganization.
China Coast Guard officials have explained to Japan and other neighboring countries whose territorial waters come close to overlapping that its role will remain unchanged for the time being.
Even so, the Japanese government expressed concern over the organizational change.
When asked by an audience member at the Tokyo event about measures the government is taking to arrest the declining birthrate, Nikai, 79, unfavorably compared today’s childbearing age population with their wartime equivalents.
“During and after the war, there were no people who chose not to have kids because it was troublesome,” Nikai said. “There are people who think selfishly that they will be happier by choosing not to have children.
“To make everyone happy, people should have many children, which will also make our country flourish,” Nikai added.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rebutted Nikai’s remarks when Yukio Edano, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, raised the issue at the debate between party leaders in the Diet on June 27.
“Whether to have children is the choice of each person, and this is not something that we should give opinions on. I will create a society where anyone who wants can have children,” said Abe.
Reacting to Nikai’s comments on June 26, Yuichiro Tamaki, 49, co-leader of the Democratic Party for the People, told reporters at his party headquarters, “It is wrong to moralize on specific ideas of what a family should be, or to prescribe specific values.”
“(The LDP is) the ‘ossan’ (old fogies') party, which persists with such old-fashioned values,” Tamaki added.
Nikai’s remarks are the latest in a string of controversial comments by LDP members on the declining birthrate and conventional family values.
（文献：The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution.1995.. Luigi Luca Cavalii-Sforza and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza. Addison Wesley Publ. ISBN 0-201-44231-0）
（文献：The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution.1995.. Luigi Luca Cavalii-Sforza and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza. Addison Wesley Publ. ISBN 0-201-44231-0）
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