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Police on Sunday arrested three men in connection with the death of a Saitama City man whose remains were found in a forest near Chiba City last week. Terutada Kobayashi, 31, disappeared at the beginning of May after he was seen having a violent argument with other customers at a drinking establishment in Saitama City.
Police on Sunday arrested two 18 year-old plumbers and 25-year-old gang member Ryuichi Takagi, who were identified as having been involved in the dispute. The three were charged with abandoning a corpse. Police said they are looking for another gang member, Keitaro Kimura, 36, who has also been implicated in Kobayashi's death.
© News reports
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Disillusioned
Does this mean 'a bar' in English?
The story talks about gang members. What kind of gang members are they?thepro
What's with the abandoning a corpse thing in Japanese news all the time?
Statistician
Holding charge I think. They don't know cause of death.
nath
A Drinking Establishment is a generic way of identifying a place where people can drink alcohol. What else happens there... that is left out.
Abandoning a Corpse is what it means - they were charged not for the death, but of taking a dead body and abandoning it. So, they will not be charged (not by this statement anyway) for the death or for being an accomplice to murder, simply charged with abandoning a corpse.... ;-) cool hu
Gang Members - Not too sure, but for all we know these "gang members" were a part of a bigger gang and the police simply don't want to make that connection.
NeoJamal
It's a familiar pattern that some quiet and peaceful neighborhood in Chiba..and Funabashi becomes a dumping ground for a homicide that occurs in some run down hole in Saitama.
It's all too easy for a thug to dispose of his dirty business just across the border. The recent growth in the number of Tobu Noda Line services during the day and the congestion free use of route 16 during the night makes it all too easy for them to make frequent incursions into their neighbouring prefecture that have flush toilets to do both of their dirty businesses
polarmalik
The three were charged with abandoning a corpse. This is very confusing - abandoning a corpse means just that. Does it mean that the three are not charged for murder - if that's the case than who murdered the victim.
mnemosyne23
The whole abandoning a corpse thing is so ridiculous. They arrested these men because they were involved in the original dispute with the victim, ne? Presumably they're assuming that the argument was what led to his death. If you're going to arrest them, arrest them for both abandoning a corpse (which by definition would seem to imply "body dump") AND either suspicion of murder or suspicion of accessory to murder. If they were just some random passersby who saw the body and didn't report it, then "abandoning a corpse" would be a reasonable sole charge. But if these men were involved enough in the victim's death to abandon his corpse, then at the very least they're accessories to murder, even if it's accessories after the fact.
Molenir
Guys, thats not the way things work. Really. Its like in the US, if the police think you're guilty of something, they arrest you on some pretext, some small charge they can hold you on, and then they work to make a case to nail you on the bigger charges. Works the same here. These guys are arrested for abandoning a corpse. They'll hold em and try to get a confession for murder, while they're building a case and assuming they're doing their jobs, doing the legwork to prove they were the guys involved. As Statistician said, it nothing more then a holding charge while they build their case.