Prosecutors will not press charges against a former Metropolitan Police Department officer and Aum Shinrikyo follower in connection with his confessed involvement in the March 1995 shooting of the National Police Agency chief, investigation sources said June 9.
The Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office made its decision based on the lack of sufficient evidence to back confessions made by Toshiyuki Kosugi that he made the assassination attempt on Takaji Kunimatsu, then chief of the NPA, the sources said. After Kosugi told police last winter that he threw the gun he used to shoot the NPA chief into the Kanda River in central Tokyo, police launched an all-out search of the river but came up short.
Kosugi was dismissed last November for allegedly leaking police information to the religious cult, and investigation documents on his case were then sent on to prosecutors.
The metropolitan police force has meanwhile kept Kosugi in custody and have not served any arrest warrants while questioning him, in cooperation with the prosecutors, over Kunimatsu's shooting. However, they have been unable to find any material evidence to link Kosugi to the case.