On Friday, while giving a speech at a campaign rally former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot in the back in the Western city of Nara. He was pronounced dead hours later leaving Japan reeling and prompting national outpouring of shock and grief. Japan’s gun laws are among the strictest in the world. Handguns are banned and people have to undergo extensive tests, training, background, and mental health checks to obtain and keep shotguns or air rifles. This was the first assassination of a former or incumbent Prime Minister in Japan in 90 years. The current suspect of the killing is Tetsuya Yamagami. However, due to people joking online that Yamagami looks like famed game developer Hideo Kojima, Kojima has been misidentified as the killer.
French politician Damien Rieu retweeted images of Kojima saying “The extreme left kills.” He eventually deleted the tweet but it may have mislead a news station in Greece that covered the assassination. During the segment covering the attack on Abe, images of Hideo Kojima was aired and they misidentified him as the suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami. When Kojima is shown on screen, people on the broadcast said “Tetsuya has confessed to his actions to the police, admitting that he wanted Abe dead because he was disappointed and upset with him. The police have learned that he [the culprit] had served in the Navy Special Forces and taught a unit in Medical School on Physiotherapy for dementia patients. He was passionate about Che Guevara,” according to a viewer translating.
Apparently, people online as well as the broadcast are focused on connecting the killer with famous Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara based on one of the photos of Kojima, which shows him standing next to an image of Guevara.
Hideo Kojima has yet to comment or respond.