Japan on Tuesday executed a person convicted of killing seven folks in a truck ramming and stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s common Akihabara electronics district in 2008, the justice ministry mentioned.
Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa advised reporters that Tomohiro Kato was hanged on the Tokyo detention heart earlier Tuesday.
Furukawa mentioned Tomohiro Kato had undertaken “meticulous preparation” for the assault and displayed a “strong intent to kill.”
“The death sentence in this case was finalized through sufficient deliberation in court,” he advised reporters. “Based on this fact, I approved the execution after extremely thorough scrutiny.”
Kato went on the stabbing spree on June 8, 2008, telling police: “I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn’t matter who I’d kill.”
He was arrested on the spot shortly after the assaults, in which he rammed a rented two-ton truck right into a crowd of pedestrians earlier than getting out and randomly stabbing folks.
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“This is a very painful case that led to extremely grave consequences and shocked society,” Furukawa mentioned Tuesday.
Surveillance footage aired by nationwide broadcaster NHK after the assault confirmed Kato shopping for searching knives two days earlier than the assault, laughing with a retailer employee and at occasions making stabbing motions together with his arms.
Police mentioned Kato documented his lethal journey to Akihabara on Internet bulletin boards, typing messages on a cell phone from behind the wheel of the truck and complaining of his unstable job and his loneliness.
In one on-line message about 20 minutes earlier than the assault, police mentioned Kato wrote: “It’s time.”
AP Photo/Kyodo News
The son of a banker, Kato grew up in Aomori prefecture in Japan’s north, the place he graduated from a high highschool.
Prosecutors mentioned Kato’s self-confidence had plummeted after a lady he had chatted with on-line abruptly stopped emailing him after he despatched her {a photograph} of himself.
His anger towards most people grew when his feedback on an Internet bulletin board, together with his plans to go on a killing spree, have been met with no response in any respect, prosecutors mentioned.
While awaiting trial, Kato wrote to a 56-year-old taxi driver whom he injured in the stabbing spree, expressing his regret.
The victims “were enjoying their lives, and they had dreams, bright futures, warm families, lovers, friends and colleagues,” Kato wrote in response to a duplicate printed in the Shukan Asahi weekly.
And in court docket, he supplied regret for the assault.
“Please let me use this occasion to apologize,” he mentioned concerning the bloody rampage that additionally left 10 folks injured.
After the 2008 rampage, Japan banned possession of double-edged knives with blades longer than 5.5 centimeters, punishable by as much as three years in jail or a 500,000 yen positive.
The assault was Japan’s worst mass killing in seven years and Kato was sentenced to loss of life in 2011, a call that was upheld by Japan’s high court docket in 2015.
Kato’s execution is the primary in Japan this yr and comes after three prisoners have been hanged in December 2021. Those executions ended a two-year hiatus and have been the primary underneath Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration.
Japan is likely one of the few developed nations to retain the loss of life penalty, and public assist for capital punishment stays excessive regardless of worldwide criticism.
Executions are carried out by hanging, typically lengthy after sentencing. More than 100 individuals are presently on loss of life row in Japan.
International advocacy teams have denounced the Japanese system, underneath which loss of life row inmates can wait for his or her executions for a few years in solitary confinement and are solely advised of their impending loss of life a number of hours forward of time.
But Furukawa defended the loss of life penalty on Tuesday.
The authorities believes it’s “not appropriate” to abolish capital punishment, given “heinous crimes such as mass killings and robbery-murders still repeatedly occur”, he advised reporters.
Tuesday’s execution comes on the anniversary of one other main stabbing assault — the 2016 Sagamihara rampage at a disabled care facility, in which 19 folks have been killed.
Japan additionally carried out the executions of six members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult answerable for the 1995 sarin assault and different crimes on July 26, 2018.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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