crime

Man arrested for making online threats to kill Abe

10 Comments

Police said Saturday they have arrested a 25-year-old man in Okayama Prefecture for sending emails last year in which he threatened to murder then Liberal-Democratic Party leader Shinzo Abe.

Originally suspecting the comments to have been the work of a prolific computer virus that hit headlines last year, police carried out an online investigation into the source of the six threatening messages that were posted to Abe on the Prime Minister's Office's home page between Oct 2 and Oct 9.

According to a report on Fuji TV, police found that the sender had used his own PC to post 120 similar messages to other web pages, including Diet members' blogs and the National Police Agency website.

The suspect, who was taken into custody on Friday, was quoted by police as saying he sent the messages to Abe because "everybody knows who he is, so I thought it would be big news."

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10 Comments
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So be careful what you posting, cause /they/ know which computer is sending what, even who is pushing keys on your keyboard. Oh I forgot to add... We all love your leader, he is handsome and confident... ;) just in case.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Man threatens to kill not-yet-PM, with no realistic chance of ever getting close enough to him to carry out said deed, police arrest him.

Man threatens to kill ex-girlfriend, police go on holiday to Sapporo and leave him to it.

I've just seen on the news that yet another cop has been charged with some upskirt photo action, this time the victim was an 8 year old girl.

The NPA needs a shake-up, and then some.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

“everybody knows who he is, so I thought it would be big news.”

So a harmless attention-seeking nut then. Why weren't the police so quick to act in other threat / stalking cases ?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Some justice??

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Well said kaminarioyaji... NPA is a mockery! Abe doesnt work at seven-eleven that anyone can reach and stab him, posting such links or sending such messages only brings harm to yourself. But there are so many cases in which J-cops fail to show what their job is really but here they were swift to bust this mentally ill Abe hater!

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Loser. To jail for long time.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Originally suspecting the comments to have been the work of a prolific computer virus that hit headlines last year, police carried out an online investigation into the source of the six threatening messages that were posted to Abe on the Prime Minister’s Office’s home page between Oct 2 and Oct 9.

Guess at least the cops learned their lessons...

But it's a shame that freedom of speech isn't popular in Japan (arrest him for harassment, not for writing on blogs)

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Or maybe they grabbed some innocent bloke and bullied him into confessing, like they did with the last computer crime that came to their attention?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Death threats are not protected under "freedom of speech". To issue them against a political candidate raises them from a death threat to an assasination threat. The police are ALWAYS going to give such a threat higher priority than a domestic threat.

Threats issued from a computer can ALWAYS be tracked back to the actual device used to send the threat, no matter how many "anonymous" proxies you try to use or how you try to hide the date/time-stamp. Every relay node in between the originating machine and the destination has recorded the tracking information of where the message came from and what time it was received and relayed on. Then it's just a matter of backtracking through the nodes, interviewing the owner and finding out who was using the device at that time. So why doesn't it happen with EVERY threat sent over the internet? Because it's expensive and time-consuming. They're only going to expend the effort when high-visibility targets have been threatened. But the net-monitoring technology is getting better, so don't be surprised when you start seeing more threats on "common folk" being resolved this way.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

looking for attention ... sick bastid

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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