TOKYO
Japanese police have arrested a man suspected of making phone calls threatening to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, in the wake of an investigation into death threats against Ambassador Caroline Kennedy.
Mitsuyoshi Kamiya, a 52-year-old resident of southern Okinawa island, was taken into police custody Thursday, Kyodo news agency reported.
According to the Metropolitan Police Department, Kamiya had admitted to making calls threatening to bomb the embassy and a U.S. military base in Okinawa three times from March 5-14.
Earlier this week, local media had cited investigative sources as saying a caller had threatened to kill Kennedy and the U.S. consul general in Okinawa, Alfred Magleby.
Tokyo police said they were investigating the calls, made by what appeared to be a male voice speaking English, on suspicion of blackmail.
On Wednesday, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said the U.S. and Japanese governments were working together following the reported death threats.
"We are working with the Japanese government to ensure the necessary measures are in place," she said in a statement.
"We take any threats to U.S. diplomats seriously. We take every step possible to protect our personnel."
Kennedy, the daughter of U.S. President John F. Kennedy who was assassinated in 1963, became the first female U.S. envoy in Tokyo in 2013. Magleby has been consul general in Okinawa -- where most of the U.S. bases and troops in the country are situated -- since 2012.
Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador in Seoul Mark Lippert was hospitalized following a knife attack by a South Korean nationalist activist who expressed opposition to joint South Korean-American military drills.
