TOKYO: Two soldiers were killed and a third wounded when a fellow recruit opened fire at a training range in central Japan on Wednesday, the military said.
“During a live-bullet exercise as part of new personnel training, one Self-Defense Forces candidate fired at three personnel,” the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) said in a statement.
“The death of another person has been confirmed of the three who were shot at,” the GSDF added later, after earlier announcing a first death and two injuries.
Earlier, government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said a suspect had been detained, but gave no further details.
Local police told reporters the shooter was an 18-year-old SDF candidate who was detained on the spot by other soldiers.
He has been charged with the attempted murder of a 25-year-old soldier, a local police spokesman said, declining to be identified.
The suspect “fired a rifle at the victim with the intent to kill”, the spokesman said .
National broadcaster NHK reported the wounded were a man in his fifties and two other men in their twenties.
Aerial footage broadcast by the station showed military and civilians gathered around an emergency vehicle and police blocking nearby roads.
Some appeared to be investigators, wearing covers over their shoes and hair.
A local resident told NHK he saw several emergency vehicles rushing to the area at around 9:30 am local time (0030 GMT) but had not heard anything before that.
– Recent incidents –
The training range is administered by the region’s Camp Moriyama and is a covered facility of more than 65,000 square metres.
Violent crime in Japan is extremely rare and gun possession tightly controlled.
But several high-profile incidents have rattled the country over the last year.
