Greek TV mistakes Hideo Kojima as the former prime minister’s killer

Last Updated on: 10th July 2022, 01:31 pm

The assassination of Japan’s ex-prime minister Shinzo Abe took the whole world by surprise, but Hideo Kojima was probably even more shocked when his image was associated with the killer himself, even though he had (obviously) nothing to do with the crime. 

The confusion actually started on Twitter, but it took much larger proportions when the Greek TV channel ANT1 noticed the assassination with Kojima’s photos when describing the actual killer Tetsuya Yamagami, who was caught red-handed and confessed to the crime.

Why was Hideo Kojima mistaken as the killer?

The situation was explained through a post in the ResetEra forums. It all begins with the French politician Clémentine Autain expressing solidarity for the Japanese people through a Twitter post. The problem was the reply of Damien Rieu, another French politician who declared that the “extreme left kills”, following with images of Hideo Kojima alongside imagery of Che Guevara.

Why is that a problem? Because Yamagami himself has been noticed as having a certain passion for Guevara. He states that he had no grudges against the former conservative politician, but was “somewhat unsatisfied” with him. This is also only coming from a high-profile person such as a politician, whose every declaration is public and subject to form opinions.

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The mystery of how Rieu got the images in the first place remains, but people have theorized that it was a 4chan prank that went too far. The tweet was soon deleted, but the damage was already done as greek media picked up the images and also aired them, giving Kojima’s face to the killer.

This was somehow ironic as Kojima, who is best known for creating a legendary series of games criticizing war and terrorism ends up being labeled as a terrorist himself. But it’s also terrible as it was another case of fake news being widespread by public voices and a lack of fact-checking. To this moment, Kojima has not spoken about the incident.

Shinzo Abe death

The former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot and died due to sustained injuries earlier today. The crime was attributed to Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, an ex-military who was caught in the act and confessed to the crime. Abe was shot during a speech as he was running for the upcoming elections in Nara. And again, Hideo Kojima has nothing to do with that.