TOKYO, March 26 – A 23-year-old second lieutenant in Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force was sent to prosecutors Thursday for alleged unlawful entry into the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo earlier this week.
Kodai Murata, a member of the GSDF’s Camp Ebino in Miyazaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of unlawfully entering the embassy’s premises. He was initially detained by embassy staff, with a knife believed to be his found in the bushes on the premises.
Investigative sources said Murata appears to have entered by climbing over a wall with barbed wire that injured his hands.
The Metropolitan Police Department has quoted Murata as telling investigators, “I tried to convey my opinions to the ambassador,” implying he wanted China to refrain from criticizing Japan. He has also said, “I was planning to surprise them by taking my own life” if rebuffed.
The Defense Ministry said Thursday that Murata was promoted to second lieutenant on March 15 after graduating from the GSDF’s officer candidate school this January and starting work at the camp. The ministry said, “We have not heard he said or did anything problematic.”
After he took a day off on Monday, he did not show up for work on Tuesday, the day he trespassed, and his unit tried to contact him, the ministry said.
After leaving the camp around noon Monday and taking a highway bus and shinkansen bullet train, Murata arrived in Tokyo and stayed overnight in an internet cafe, the sources said. He told the investigators that he bought a knife in a retail store in Tokyo.
The incident occurred as relations between Japan and China have deteriorated since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in November suggesting that an attack on Taiwan could prompt a response by Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
