A senior member of a rightwing group who served prison time for shooting a Nagasaki mayor was arrested Monday for allegedly defaming a female lawyer, police said.
The Metropolitan Police Department arrested Kazumi Wakashima, 55, a member of the Shoki-juku, on allegations he engaged in a defamation campaign against the lawyer in June 2003.
Wakashima rode in a loudspeaker van around the lawyer's office in Minato Ward, Tokyo, repeatedly reading out a newsmagazine report alleging she had been punished by a local bar association, according to police.
In 1990, Wakashima, going by the name of Kazumi Tajiri, shot and seriously wounded then Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima after he was angered by the mayor's remark that the Emperor Showa bore responsibility for Japan's involvement in World War II.
After serving a 12-year prison term through 2002, Wakashima unsuccessfully ran for Nagasaki mayor in April 2003.
After arresting Wakashima, MPD investigators searched the Shoki-juku's offices in Tokyo and Nagasaki. Police have obtained arrest warrants for two others whom they suspect were also involved in the defamation campaign against the lawyer.