Why did the Japanese civil servant sail to his death from South Korea in an inflatable dinghy?
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 04 February, 2014, 2:24pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 04 February, 2014, 11:33pm
Julian Ryall in Tokyo
A screengrab of a Japan Times report shows the dinghy which the bureaucrat used to likely sail from South Korea to Japan. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Mystery surrounds the motives of a Japanese bureaucrat found dead after apparently attempting to sail approximately 50 kilometres from South Korea to Japan in a small inflatable dinghy.
The man, who set sail in January, has not been named by the Japanese government on the grounds of privacy. All that is known about the victim is that he was an employee of the Cabinet Office in Tokyo but had been studying at a graduate school in the United States since last summer.
A spokesman for the office told the South China Morning Post that it was investigating the case – which he agreed was “curious” – but declined to identify the victim.
The man, aged 30, had been granted permission by the ministry to attend an economic conference in Seoul in January.
The Cabinet Office said it heard nothing from its employee after he arrived in Seoul.
The next confirmed sighting was on January 18 by the crew of a pleasure boat off the city of Kitakyushu, which reported to the Coast Guard that they spotted an apparently unconscious man in a rubber dinghy drifting near the outer breakwater.
Weather conditions subsequently deteriorated, the 7th Regional Coast Guard said, and they were unable to conduct a day’s search. When a patrol boat did reach the area, they discovered the 3-metre boat had capsized and the occupant was missing.
In a subsequent search by divers, the man’s body was located on the seabed. He was wearing a black jacket and carrying South Korean currency.
Authorities have confirmed that the boat was made in South Korea.
Japan’s Fuji TV has reported that the man purchased the inflatable dinghy on January 6 while he was in Seoul and arranged for it to be shipped to Busan. The following day, he arrived in the port city and bought an outboard motor.
The bureaucrat’s movements became even more confused after South Korean authorities located his luggage in a hotel which different from the hotel where he originally checked in, and where he had signed in under a false name.
Japanese police are reportedly looking into the possibility that the man committed suicide, although a more likely explanation would be that he wanted to try to complete the crossing of the Tsushima Strait – which takes at least three hours by commercial hydrofoil – in a dinghy.
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