Former Japanese PM Tomiichi Murayama dies aged 101

Tomiichi Murayama apologised for his country’s wartime and colonial past (AP)

Japan’s former prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, best known for his 1995 “Murayama statement” apologising to Asian victims of his country’s aggression, has died aged 101.

Mr Murayama died at a hospital in his hometown Oita, southwestern Japan, according to a statement from Mizuho Fukushima, the head of Japan’s Social Democratic Party.