AnarWiki/markdown/Kōki_Ishii.md

**Kōki Ishii/石井 紘基** was a [Japanese](Japan "wikilink") politician,
socialist and victim of a highly suspicious assassination.

## Life

Born during World War II and the fall of the Japanese Empire, Kōki
graduated from university with a law degree and moved to the
[USSR](USSR "wikilink") for 6 years in the 1960s. Upon returning to
Japan, he became a socialist politician and moved between various
political parties.

He began to lead several commissions exposing government corruption, and
discovered how there are around 3,000 companies in Japan that had been
bribing the government and that around 2 trillion yen (in 2000 Japanese
money, akin to $20 billion in 2019 USD), he argued that corruption was
so entrenched in Japanese politics that exposing it would trigger the
collapse of the government.

## Murder

On the 25th of October, 2002, Kōki was stabbed to death by Ito Hakusui,
a Yamaguchi-gumi gangster. Ito escaped down the road covered in blood in
broad daylight and fled to the mountains without being noticed, but
surrendered himself the next day. Ito said he killed Ishii because Ishii
refused to pay a bribe. However, other theories have been proposed.

### Theory \#1: Government Assassination

Some of the evidence that the government was behind the assassination
include:

  - A journalist, his wife and staff claimed Kōki said he had
    "discovered something terrible".
  - The day of his death he was due to announce his findings to the
    Japanese government.
  - [Reporters](Propaganda_Model "wikilink") had been informed of the
    assassinations a full day before it happened.
  - Documents were missing from his briefcase that he had taken with
    him.
  - The killer claimed he was hired to perform the murder but didn't say
    by who.
  - The police investigation did not swab for finerprints.
  - His diary went missing mysteriously after the murder.