Wakayama: Public prosecutors indicted a man, 24, Wednesday for attempted murder and other charges over an incident in April in which an explosive was thrown at Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on a campaign trail.

After analyzing the structure of the explosive, the Wakayama District Public Prosecutors Office concluded that the weapon was highly lethal and that Ryuji Kimura, the suspected attacker, therefore intended to kill the prime minister and others.

According to investigative sources, Kimura still remains silent during questioning. The prosecutors office in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, judged that he is capable of taking criminal responsibility, based on psychiatric evaluation conducted on the suspect for about three months until Friday.

Besides attempted murder, Kimura faces charges of violating the public offices election law, the explosives control law, and the firearms and swords control law.

On the morning of April 15, Kimura threw a cylindrical explosive toward Kishida about 10 meters away at Saikazaki Port in the city of Wakayama during the prime minister’s visit to the venue for delivering a stump speech.

Kishida was evacuated safely, but a police officer and a man in the crowd suffered slight injuries. A hole with debris from the explosive was found in a container tens of meters away from the scene.

According to sources including the Wakayama prefectural police department, materials for black gunpowder and tools have been confiscated from the home of the suspect, which indicates that he made the explosive himself.

Before the attack, Kimura had filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for damages, claiming that it was unconstitutional for him not to be able to run in the July 2022 election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of Japan’s parliament, partly because of his young age.

While the suspect remained mum on the attack during his detention for the psychiatric evaluation, the prefectural police suspect that he may have committed the crime due to his frustration at the election system and other issues related to the country’s politics.

Kimura was arrested on the day of the attack on suspicion of forced obstruction of business by blocking his election speech at the port. He was served a fresh arrest warrant on May 6, for allegedly violating the explosives control law.

The prefectural police referred Kimura to public prosecutors on Thursday, when he was in detention for the psychiatric evaluation, on charges including attempted murder.

JIJI Press