DEATH OF NOTORIOUS MURDERER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 83, 24 August 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEATH OF NOTORIOUS MURDERER.

ASSASSINATION OF QUEEN OF KOREA. Okamoto Bvunosuke, one of the most notorious of the adventurers connected with the development of the acuter stages of the Far Eastern question in the last century, has died at Shanghai. As a reward for his services he was appointed Japanese Military Adviser to the Korean Government. In this position he concocted with Viscount Miura, the Japanese Minister, and M. Sugimura, the First Secretary of the Legation, the plot for the assassination of the Queen of Korea, which was carried into effect on the night of October 8, 1895. Oka- ■ moto enlisted the actual murderers and procured their entrance to the palace, marshalling them for the final assault in the palace yard, where he gave them the fos-hunting instructions which have now passed into history. Owing to the efforts of Sir Walter Hillier, Miura, Sugimura and Okamoto were brought to trial. The Court found that Okamoto had acted on the instructions of a superior official, and that there was no evidence to connect Miura and Sugimura with the actual murder, although the Court acknowledged that they had instigated and arranged the crime. After this incident Okamoto retired into the background, but in 1910 he had the satisfaction of seeing the policy for which he had from the beginning consistently fought carried into effect, and Korea was annexed. It is alleged that the China War was Okamoto's direct inspiration. Himself a Buddhist fanatic, he was referred to by Count Aoki as "our priest-statesman."