Democratic Party lawmaker killed

Ishii Koki, Democratic Party member of the Lower House was stabbed to death on October 25 in front of his house in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

A man presented himself at the police station on the next day and was arrested when he said he had assassinated Ishii.

The suspect is a man who in 1988 broke into Japanese Communist Party headquarters, injured two guards with knife, and was apprehended on the spot.

Ishii is the third Dietmember to be assassinated after Asanuma Inejiro, Socialist Party chair, in 1960, and Niwa Heisuke, Labor Minister in 1990.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on October 25 stated that such a criminal act must not be condoned in a law-governed country. Shii demanded the arrest of the criminal and an investigation of the incident as soon as possible. (end)