Gunman Injures Japan’s Top Police Official

Japan’s top police official was shot and seriously hurt today by a masked assailant in an early morning attack outside the official’s Tokyo home, police said.

Takaji Kunimatsu, director general of the National Police Agency, was hospitalized in serious condition, wounded in the abdomen, police said.

They said the gunman, who was wearing a black coat and a surgical mask to hide his face, escaped. They had no other details.

It was not clear whether the attack had any connection to the police investigation into a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways last week that killed 10 people and sickened more than 5,000 others. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Kunimatsu’s shooting.