Public shootings such as the one that occurred in suburban Tokyo on Friday are rare in Japan [AFP]

Police entered the Kanagawa district building in which he was hiding on Friday, to find the shooter dead, Shigeki Umehara, a police spokesman, said.

The man entered a real-estate agent office and said he was a member of a crime syndicate before he opened fire around 2:30pm local time (0530 GMT).

When officers surrounded the building, the man shot himself in the head, Japan's Jiji press said in a report.

The assailant had identified himself to police over the phone as Kenji Hayashi, a 62-year-old member of one of the largest crime syndicate groups in Japan, the Inagawa-kai.

The three wounded men were taken to hospital and one was in critical condition, Katsuzo Nakayama, a senior police spokesman, said.

Japan has strict gun-control laws and public shootings are rare.

Shootings that do occur are often linked to the Japanese mafia, yakuza, who have been linked to extortion, gambling, prostitution, gun-running, drug trafficking and construction-kickback schemes.

In 2007, the mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Ito, was shot to death at close range by a gangster outside a train station while campaigning for re-election for his fourth term.

Later that year, a 37-year-old man killed two people and wounded six others in a shooting spree at a sports club in southern Sasebo city before killing himself outside a church.

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