Hoshi Tōru
Hoshi Tōru (星 亨, 19 May 1850 – 21 June 1901) was a Japanese politician and cabinet minister in Meiji period Japan.He travelled to England, where he studied at the Middle Temple, and in 1877 became the first Japanese to qualify as a barrister in the United Kingdom.On his return to Japan from England, Hoshi entered the Ministry of Justice, and was outspoken in his criticism of the hanbatsu, or clan-based politics, and what he perceived as the weak position of the Japanese government over the revision of the imequal treaties with the western powers.[4] However, the same month he was accused by the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun of involvement in a corruption scandal within the Tokyo City Assembly.In March 1901, he was found innocent due to lack of evidence, but during the middle of the trial he was assassinated by a middle-aged man with a short sword.