Kojima Productions, the studio headed by Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima, publicly denounced “fake news and rumors” in a statement on social media. The statement comes after Hideo Kojima was falsely identified as the alleged assassin of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The statement was delivered by the official Twitter account of Kojima productions in Japanese and English. They do not reference the misidentification incident directly, but state that “[Kojima Productions] do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases.” Kojima himself did not comment directly on the incident, but shared the Tweet via his personal Twitter account.
#KojimaProductions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information. We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases. pic.twitter.com/fDi0FR9kB0
— KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) July 9, 2022
The original allegations Kojima Productions may be responding to were publicized by French far-right politician Damien Rieu on July 8, 2022. He shared a Tweet that falsely claimed the “far-left” perpetrated the assassination of Shinzo Abe. The false claim included three photos of Hideo Kojima. One photo showed Kojima wearing a Soviet-style Ushanka hat, and two showed him with images and art of Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara. The accusation spread, going as far as Greek news channel ANT1 TV Greece, which shared the same images and falsely identified Kojima as the alleged assassin in a report. ANT1 removed the video, and Rieu deleted the tweet and apologized. Rieu admitted (in French) that he was at fault “for not fact-checking before sharing.”
The alleged killer is actually Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41 year-old resident of Nara city. He was arrested at the scene after using what looked to be a homemade firearm to shoot Shinzo Abe. Abe was in Nara campaigning for a local political candidate.
