Tokyo's Akihabara district on Sunday marked the 17th anniversary of a stabbing rampage that killed seven and injured 10 others.
Passersby placed flowers and offered prayers near the intersection where Tomohiro Kato, a 39-year-old former temp worker, mowed down pedestrians in a vehicle-free zone with a truck, killing three people, at around 12:30 p.m. on June 8, 2008. He then got out of his truck and randomly stabbed passers-by with a knife. Four of the victims died.
Kato was sentenced to death in 2011 by the Tokyo District Court. He appealed the ruling but the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in 2015. He was executed in July 2022. The Supreme Court said in its ruling that Kato was motivated by rage after being harassed on an internet forum he had become engrossed in.
Kato said he had scouted the location before the rampage to make sure there would be lots of people. He also had posted on internet message boards several warnings that he was planning to kill people in a mass attack.
© Japan Today
3 Comments
Login to comment
Garlic eater
This is one of the things that disturbs me about living in Japan. In places like Tokyo where the population is so dense, you only need to randomly encounter one madman out of a million people to fall victim to this sort of thing. Or to encounter some madman with a knife who watches NHK too much.
OssanAmerica
You can run into a dangerous nutcase anywhere. Regardless of country or population.
Tony W.
Japan is an example to other countries which have stupidly done away with execution for murderers; the fail the relatives of the victims and possibly make potential murderers more likely to do it.