Britain to ban samurai swords

2007-12-12 19:44

London - Britain plans to ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons have been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.

The Home Office (Britain's Interior Ministry) said on Wednesday the swords would be added to its Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired.

However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.

"In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons," Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.

"We recognise it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."

The Association of Chief Police Officers said the swords were not a common weapon but they had been used in a number of significant incidents.

In 2000, Robert Ashman murdered a Liberal Democrat councillor at the offices of Cheltenham MP Nigel Jones, who was also seriously hurt in the attack.

A year earlier, Eden Strang seriously wounded 11 people when he went on the rampage with a samurai sword at a Roman Catholic Church near his home in Thornton Heath, south London.

- Reuters