Japanese mayor dies after shooting

When Nagasaki’s mayor was fatally shot in southern Japan, it was not much of a surprise that a gangster was arrested for the attack.

In a country where regular citizens face strict gun laws, the mob does most of the shooting.

Iccho Ito, 61, was shot twice in the back yesterday evening and died early today.

Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of Japan’s largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, was captured at the scene and admitted to the attack, police said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed “shock and regret” at Ito’s assassination and paid tribute to him as “a champion of peace for a world where nuclear war would never happen again”.

The secretary-general, who is visiting Rome, “expresses his deepest condolences to his family and friends, to the citizens of Nagasaki and Japan, to the many who work for a world without nuclear weapons,” UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

“As mayor of the second city that had been destroyed by atomic weapons in 1945, mayor Ito was a champion of peace for a world where nuclear war would never happen again,” Okabe said.