Two gangsters were shot and seriously wounded in a restaurant's parking lot in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, early Sunday morning, police said.
Those shot were identified as Naoya Murase, 28, a member of a criminal gang, and Mitsuo Ota, also 28, a member of another gang. Both live in Okazaki, police said.
Murase was reportedly shot in the left side of his chest. Ota's left thigh was penetrated by a bullet.
According to police, six men entered the family restaurant "Gasto Okazaki" shortly after 4 a.m. A quarrel broke out suddenly, and the men went out into the restaurant's parking area. Neighbors reportedly heard shots and witnessed two or three cars drive away from the parking lot. Investigators found about a dozen empty cartridges on the scene.
Two charged with murder-robbery
OSAKA -- The Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office on Sunday charged two men with murdering a company president here and robbing him of some 150,000 yen in cash.
Toshinori Nakamura, 39, a real estate agent, of Osaka's Higashisumiyoshi Ward, and Fumihiro Hioki, 33, a company employee, of Osaka's Suminoe Ward, were indicted on the charge of robbery-murder, prosecutors said.
According to investigators, Nakamura and Hioki, in conspiracy with a 24-year-old man whose dead body was found in Kyoto Prefecture later, killed Shizuo Takeguchi, 46, president of a housing facilities company, by striking him in the head with an iron bar at his office in Osaka's Tsurumi Ward at around 7 p.m. on July 20.
Police believed they also robbed him of cash and a mobile phone, then put his body into a drum and poured in concrete.