Nagasaki man arrested for abetting mayor's murderer

Police arrested a Nagasaki man early Sunday on suspicion of helping a gangster who fatally shot the then Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito on April 17.

Nagasaki prefectural police identified the man as Hiromi Ogawa, 60, who they said acknowledged having given the suspect, Tetsuya Shiroo, a ride to the neighborhood of the scene of the attack shortly before the shooting.

"I was asked to give him a ride. I did not know he was planning to kill the mayor," Ogawa was quoted as telling investigators after his arrest.

The 61-year-old mayor was shot twice in the back at a one-meter point-blank range on the evening of April 17 during his mayoral election campaign. Ito died of blood loss the following morning.

According to investigators, Ogawa, president of a construction company, has long been a close acquaintance of Shiroo, 59, an acting leader of the Suishin-kai gang group affiliated with Japan's biggest organized crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi.

Shiroo had lent a total of about 80 million yen to Ogawa to help finance his company's operations in the past.

Ogawa gave Shiroo the two-kilometer ride from the assailant's home to a place near the murder scene, police said.

Shiroo hid himself near the entrance of a building close to the mayor's election campaign office, ambushing the mayor after he had returned from the day's barnstorming, they said.

Around 2003, Ogawa's company tried in vain to take out a loan from a financial institution by obtaining a repayment guarantee from the Nagasaki city government. The local government has been running a loan guarantee system to provide assistance to troubled small and midsize companies.

The financial institution turned down Ogawa's request for the loan, leading Shiroo to develop a grudge against the city government. Shiroo was heard complaining about the city's attitude to the matter of the loan, police said.

Police investigators are planning to question Ogawa in connection with the loan matter.

Ogawa's construction company went effectively bankrupt in January 2004 with debts of 50 million yen, according to a credit research company.

Prior to the attack on the mayor, Shiroo had forwarded a letter to TV Asahi Corp, which read, "I cannot forgive Mayor Itcho Ito." The letter claimed that the mayor had perpetrated wrongdoing in connection with public works projects.

The brushstrokes of the handwritten letter are similar to Ogawa's, police said, adding that the investigators are planning to ask him whether he had written the letter on behalf of Shiroo.