Japan 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 were killed and ten were injured in 2008 in the busy electronics business hub of Tokyo.
Tomohiro Kato, also known as the “Akihabara murderer”, was executed this Tuesday at the age of 39 by hanging, as established by Japanese law, in the capital’s detention center where he was imprisoned, the minister reported at a press conference. Japanese Justice, Yoshihisa Furukawa.
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the murder
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.
That Sunday, Kato broke into Akihabara, a busy area of the metropolis specializing in technology, video games, and manga, with a truck just after 12:30 p.m. rammed into the crowd on its main street.
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After running over five people, three of them dead, Kato got out of the truck and stabbed a dozen random bystanders. Four of them lost their lives.
The man was arrested at the site shortly after the attacks.
This event shocked Japan, which prohibited until 2011 that this area be pedestrianized again on Sundays and is one of the most remembered incidents in the country’s black chronicle globally.
⚠️ Japan executes the “Akihabara killer” who killed seven people in 2008
Japan has executed the “Akihabara killer”, a man who in 2008 killed seven people and injured ten others in the busy area of Tokyo’s electronics district, the Justice Ministry announced. pic.twitter.com/0ZZECtfvMr
– Paco Elizondo Official (@pacoelizondo_1) July 26, 2022
“This is a very painful case that had very serious consequences and shocked society,” Furukawa said on Tuesday.
The man sentenced for the crime, Tomohiro Kato, 39, made “meticulous preparation” for the attack and showed a “strong intent to kill,” according to the justice minister.
“The death sentence in this case was reached through sufficient deliberation by the court,” the minister added to reporters.
“Based on this fact, I approved the execution after extremely strict scrutiny,” he added.
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The reasons for the attack
The son of a banker, Kato 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.
According to prosecutors, his self-esteem plummeted after a woman he was chatting with online stopped emailing him abruptly when he sent her a photograph 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.
At the time of the events, Kato was working at an auto parts factory in Shizuoka province, west of Tokyo, which was undergoing a downsizing process.
According to local media, three days before the event, he left the factory screaming, fearful of losing his job because he couldn’t find his overalls. The next day he no longer went to work.
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#Japan today executed a man convicted of stabbing to death seven people in 2008 in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, the Justice Ministry said. pic.twitter.com/1NCIYr8lTW
– Iramsy Peraza (@IramsyteleSUR) July 26, 2022
Kato was sentenced to death in 2011 and in 2015 the sentence became final after the Supreme Court of Japan rejected the last possible appeal of the defense, which argued that the prisoner was not in full control of his mental faculties at the time. time of the events due to severe psychological stress.
And 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 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 leaves longer than 5.5 centimeters.
the 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 hanged on the same day, and the second since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took office. Those were the first executions in Japan in two years.
There are currently 106 inmates on Japan’s death row. according to figures updated this Tuesday by the Ministry of Justice.
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Japan and the United States are among the last industrialized and democratic countries to continue to apply capital punishment, a punishment that is widely supported by Japanese public opinion.
The practice is criticized by organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) or Human Rights Watch (HRW) not only for its validity, but also for the method (the gallows) and because the inmate is usually notified a few hours in advance.
The Japanese government believes that it is “inappropriate” to abolish the death penalty, considering that “heinous crimes such as mass murder and murder during armed robbery continue to occur frequently,” the Japanese defense minister said on Tuesday. Justice.
In a statement published hours after the execution, Amnesty International harshly criticized Japan’s attitude and accused it of using public opinion “as an excuse not to take any steps towards abolishing the death penalty”, despite the fact that it belongs to organizations that urge their members to eradicate this practice.
The body also accused Kishida of “contradicting his commitment to human rights” and “ignoring international norms”, and urged the country to adopt a moratorium on executions “as a first step towards abolishing the death penalty”.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE and AFP
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