Japan has executed this Tuesday the author of the “akihabara massacre“, one of the deadliest and notorious events in recent years in the country, in which seven people died and ten were injured in 2008 in the crowded commercial center of electronics in Tokio.
Tomohiro Katoalso known as the “Akihabara murderer”, was executed this Tuesday at the age of 39 in the Gallow, as established by Japanese law. Kato made a “meticulous preparation” for the attack and showed a “strong intention to kill”, as reported in a press conference by the Japanese Minister of Justice, Yoshihisa Furukawa. “The death sentence in this case was reached by sufficient court deliberation. Based on this fact, I approved the execution after extremely strict scrutiny,” he added.
Kato carried out the killing on June 8, 2008, telling police that he had gone “to Akihabara to kill people, it didn’t matter who he killed.” He was 25 years old at the time of the attack. He was detained at the scene shortly after the attacks, in which he rammed a rented truck into a crowd, before getting out of the vehicle and stabbing random people. “This is a very painful case that had very serious consequences and shocked society,” Furukawa said on Tuesday.
The son of a banker, Kato, sentenced to death in 2011, grew up in the northern prefecture of Aomori where he graduated from a first-rate college. He failed his university entrance exams and later studied auto mechanics.
messages on the internet
According to prosecutors, his self-esteem plummeted after a woman he chatted with on internet he abruptly stopped emailing her when he sent her a picture of himself. His anger at the general public grew when his comments on a public internet bulletin board, including his plans to carry out the massacre, elicited no reaction, they added.
While awaiting trial, Kato wrote to a 56-year-old taxi driver, injured in the massacre, to express his regret. The victims “were enjoying their lives, they had dreams, promising futures, families, lovers, friends and colleagues,” Kato wrote, according to a copy published in the weekly Shukan Asahi. He also said that he was sorry during his court hearing. “Let me take this opportunity to apologize,” he said.
As a result of this crime, which occurred seven years after the massacre committed by a man armed with a butcher knife in an elementary school in Osaka (west), the Japanese authorities prohibited the possession of double-edged daggers with blades of more than 5 .5 centimeters.
Death penalty
Kato’s execution is the first application of the death penalty in Japan since last December, when three people convicted of murder were executed by hanging on the same day.
Related news
Japan and USA are among the last industrialized and democratic countries still applying the capital punishmenta punishment that has broad support in Japanese public opinion.
The Japanese government believes that “it is not appropriate” to abolish the death penalty, considering that “heinous crimes such as murders in mass and murders during armed robberies continue to occur frequently,” the justice minister said on Tuesday.