TOKYO —
Japan on Tuesday executed a man convicted of
killing seven people in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s popular Akihabara
electronics district in 2008, local media reported.
اضافة اعلان
The Justice Ministry declined to immediately confirm
reports on national broadcaster NHK and other outlets that Tomohiro Kato had
been executed over the attack, which began with him driving a truck into a
crowd.
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
attacks, in which he rammed a rented two-tonne truck into a crowd of
pedestrians before getting out and randomly stabbing people.
Police said he documented his deadly journey to
Akihabara on Internet bulletin boards, typing messages on a mobile phone from
behind the wheel of the truck and complaining of his unstable job and his
loneliness.
The son of a banker, Kato grew up in Aomori
prefecture in Japan’s north, where he graduated from a top high school. He
failed his university entrance exams and eventually trained as an auto
mechanic, reports said.
Prosecutors said Kato’s self-confidence had
plummeted after a woman he had chatted with online abruptly stopped emailing
him after he sent her a photograph of himself.
His anger against the general public grew when his
comments on an Internet bulletin board, including his plans to go on a killing
spree, were met with no reaction at all, prosecutors said.
While awaiting trial, Kato wrote to a 56-year-old
taxi driver whom he injured in the stabbing spree, expressing his remorse.
The victims “were
enjoying their lives, and they had dreams, bright futures, warm families,
lovers, friends, and colleagues,” Kato wrote according to a copy published in
the Shukan Asahi weekly.
The attack was Japan’s worst mass killing in seven
years and Kato was sentenced to death in 2011, a decision that was upheld by Japan’s
top court in 2015.
Kato’s execution is the first in Japan this year and
comes after three prisoners were hanged in December 2021.
Japan is one of the few developed countries to
retain the death penalty, and public support for capital punishment remains
high despite international criticism, especially from rights groups.
Executions are carried out by hanging, generally long after
sentencing.
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