Reuters AlertNet Lite - FACTBOX-Shootings, gangster crime in Japan

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FACTBOX-Shootings, gangster crime in Japan

18 Apr 2007 08:24:58 GMT
Source: Reuters

April 18 (Reuters) - The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki died on Wednesday after he was shot by a suspected gangster, shocking a nation where gun deaths are rare.

Here are some facts about shootings in Japan, gang membership and cases of violent attacks against politicians.

- The number of shootings in Japan fell to a record low of 53 in 2006. Shooting incidents hit a peak of 200 in 2001.

- Of the total number of shootings in 2006, "yakuza" gangster groups were suspected in 36.

- Shootings in 2006 led to two deaths and 17 injuries.

- The number of murders in Japan totalled 589 in 2005, up 8 percent from a year earlier. In contrast, the United States had 16,692 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2005, up 3 percent from 2004. The U.S. population is about 2.3 times that of Japan's.

- Confiscated guns in Japan numbered 458 last year, down 6 percent from the year before.

- Official membership in yakuza groups numbered 41,500 in 2006, down slightly from 2005, but the number of hangers-on rose marginally to 43,200.

- While violent attacks against politicians are infrequent, there have been several cases in recent years involving right-wing and yakuza groups, whose activities often overlap.

- The house of the mother of ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Koichi Kato was set on fire by a right-wing group member in August 2006 after Kato criticised then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a controversial war shrine.

- The last known murder of a politician was in October 2002, when lower house member Koki Ishii was stabbed to death by a member of a right-wing group in front of his Tokyo home.

- In May 1994, former prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa was threatened by gunfire by a former right-wing group member in a hotel in Tokyo, but he sustained no injuries. (Sources: National Police Agency, U.S. FBI, Reuters)

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Last updated:Wed Apr 18 08:25:40 2007