Hideo Kojima threatens legal action after being wrongfully identified as Shinzo Abe's assassin

The Japanese video game creator Hideo Kojima has been wrongfully identified as the man who assassinated the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on Friday including a Greek news channel, a French politician and a number of racist Twitter accounts.

Abe was shockingly shot on Friday while giving a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan and eventually succumbed to his injuries just hours later. Numerous tributes were paid to the 67-year-old including those from Boris Johnson, Volodymyr Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron.

The shooter has since been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami a former maritime self-defence force member who later confessed to killing Abe. Yamagami is not in fact Hideo Kojima, the acclaimed creator of video games such as the Metal Gear Solid series and Death Stranding.

That, however, hasn't stopped certain corners of the internet from making 'jokes' claiming that Yamagami looks like Kojima. This poor attempt at a gag appears to have gotten out of control as right-wing French politician Damien Rieu has since tweeted an image of Kojima, posing next to a picture of the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara accompanied with the text: "The extreme left kills."

The Greek news channel ANT1 TV also ran a segment about Abe's death which used the same pictures of Kojima, identifying him as the murderer.

According to Kotaku, the segment says: "Tetsuya has confessed to his actions to the police, admitting that he wanted Abe dead because he was disappointed and upset with him. The police have learned that he [the culprit] had served in the Navy Special Forces and taught a unit in Medical School on Physiotherapy for dementia patients. He was passionate about Che Guevara."

Just for clarification, 58-year-old Kojima has nothing to do with the sad death of Abe. In fact, most of his time appears to be either spent on his video game creations or celebrating other aspects of pop culture. For instance, he seems really into The Boys at the moment.

Kojima's company Kojima Productions have strongly condemned his false links to Abe's assassination. In a statement shared on Saturday, they said: "Kojima Productions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumours that convey false information. We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases."

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