Japanese police obtain arrest warrant for Chinese teen accused of defacing controversial Tokyo shrine

Japanese police have obtained an arrest warrant on Thursday for a Chinese teenager accused of vandalizing a Tokyo shrine with graffiti, seemingly mimicking an act at the same site earlier this year.

The alleged vandal was captured on security camera writing the word “toilet” in Chinese characters using a pen on a stone pillar at Yasukuni Shrine on the evening of Aug. 18. Police said they later found a selfie of the vandalism shared by the culprit on Chinese social media.

Investigators noted that the suspect, who was accompanied by another person believed to be a family member, arrived in Japan and stayed in Tokyo days before the incident. He left for Hong Kong via Haneda Airport the following morning. Yasukuni Shrine honors war dead from the Sino-Japanese War as well as war criminals from World War II. A similar incident occurred at the same shrine in May when a Chinese man filmed himself defacing a stone pillar by spray-painting “toilet” on it. The suspect, Jiang Zhuojun, was arrested in July.