Japan's top government spokesman warned the justice minister yesterday to be more careful in his public comments following his assertion this week that he had a friend of a friend in the al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama told reporters on Monday that the unidentified terrorist had entered Japan many times with disguises and false passports, proving the country needed to fingerprint and photograph arriving foreigners.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said it was clear that Hatoyama did not directly know the al-Qaeda member, but he urged Hatoyama before a Cabinet meeting yesterday to be more careful in his remarks.
"I fear his comments could lead to misunderstanding," Machimura told reporters.
"It would be unfortunate if it was thought that Japan's justice minister had contacts with terrorists," he said.
Japan on Nov. 20 will begin fingerprinting and photographing foreigners aged 16 or over entering the country to guard against terrorism, in a move critics say will fail to protect the country and will violate human rights.
Hatoyama, however, told reporters on Monday that he had personal knowledge of how terrorists can infiltrate the country, citing an unidentified "friend of a friend" who was involved in a bomb attack on the Indonesian island of Bali.
"I have never met this person, but until two or three years ago, it seems this person was visiting Japan often. And each time he arrived in Japan, he used a different passport," Hatoyama said.
The justice minister added that his friend, whom he also did not identify, had warned him to stay away from the center of Bali.
Hatoyama did not specify in his remarks to reporters whether the warning came before a bombing, or whether he alerted Indonesian officials.
Hatoyama later clarified his comments, saying that it was his friend who had been given advance warning of the 2002 bombing, not Hatoyama, and that he had not heard about the warning until months after the attack.
"I introduced this episode as something I heard from a friend," the minister said in a statement issued late on Monday. "I have not confirmed if my friend's story was true of false."
Hatoyama did not specify whether the warning came before a bombing, or whether he alerted Indonesian officials.
Indonesian police have said the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people were carried out with funds and direction from al-Qaeda. A splinter group of the Southeast Asian terror organization Jemaah Islamiyah allegedly carried out a separate attack in 2005 independently.
Japan has been concerned in recent years that it could be targeted by terrorists for its support of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS