(Tokyo) Two soldiers were killed and another injured on Wednesday in a shooting at a Japanese army shooting range in Gifu, central Japan, whose suspected perpetrator was quickly arrested.
“During a live ammunition exercise as part of training new recruits, a candidate for the Self-Defense Forces shot three people,” the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force said in a statement. then confirmed the death of two soldiers.
According to local police interviewed by AFP, the alleged shooter was an 18-year-old aspiring soldier, who was arrested at the scene by other soldiers.
He “shot a gun” with “intent to kill”, police added.
His victims were a man in his 50s and two other men in their 20s, according to Japanese state broadcaster NHK.
Aerial footage broadcast by the channel showed soldiers and civilians gathered around an emergency vehicle and police blocking nearby roads.
A resident told NHK he saw several emergency vehicles rushing into the area around 9:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. Eastern Time), but did not hear anything before that.
The shooting range where the events took place, an indoor facility extending over more than 65,000 m2is run by the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which effectively constitute the country’s army.
Series of attacks in Japan
Violent crime is rare in Japan, where gun laws are extremely restrictive.
However, several attacks have shaken the archipelago over the past year, including the murder in July 2022 of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, killed by a homemade firearm during an election campaign speech.
His alleged killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, 42, told investigators he targeted Mr Abe because of his alleged links to the Moon sect, also known as the Unification Church, to which his mother, a devotee , would have made very important donations in the past, leading their family to ruin.
Last April, incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was targeted by an improvised explosive device, also during an election event. Mr. Kishida escaped unscathed, but two other people were slightly injured.
Japanese law enforcement has been on edge since these resounding attacks on politicians, and thousands of police were deployed at the G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima (west of the country) last month.
At the end of May, a madman also killed four people, including two police officers, during a knife and shotgun attack in Nagano (center of the country).