KOKI Ishii lived in a house full of women: his Russian mother-in-law, his wife Natalia and his daughter Tatiana. They were quick to sense his moods. So on the night of Oct. 24, 2002, they knew that the 61-year-old politician was worried sick.
"I WAS TRYING TO talk but he was so withdrawn and serious," says Tatiana. "I thought maybe he wanted to tell me something, but he stayed silent so I went to bed. When I left the house the following morning, he was just staring out the window at me."
The next time Tatiana saw her father later that day, he was lying in a hospital morgue, his heart stopped by a 12-inch sashimi knife. At 10:30 a.m., as he walked toward his state-provided car near his house on a quiet, middleclass Tokyo cul-de-sac, a man wearing a dark bandana jumped out from behind a bush, skillfully buried the knife in Ishii's chest and fled, leaving Natalia at the window screaming.
Ishii's alleged killer, Hakusui Ito (48), a well-known uyoku, or ultra-nationalist, surrendered to the police a day later and is now on trial. Ito had hung around Ishii's constituency office in Setagaya for years trying to sell overpriced rightist books and extort "political donations"--a common uyoku practice. When Ishii refused a request to pay Ito's rent, prosecutors say the rightist killed him.
Case closed, say the police--but Ishii's family and friends are far from convinced
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