Seven people were killed and ten others injured in an attack that shook the country
Japan executed the author of the Akihabara massacre on Tuesday, which left seven people dead and ten others injured in this area of the capital Tokyo in 2008. The attacker rammed into five people with a truck – three of whom died -, got out of the vehicle and started stabbing passers-by, killing four other people.
As explained by the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the crime convicted Tomohiro Kato, 39, was executed by hanging in the same prison where he was held. He is the second inmate on death row in recent months, after the Justice Department executed three other inmates convicted of manslaughter in December.
According to Japanese authorities, Kato, who was 25 years old at the time of the massacre, prepared the attack “scrupulously” and showed “strong intent to kill”. Kato committed the murder on June 8, 2008, telling police that he “went to Akihabara to kill people, it didn’t matter who he killed.”
He was arrested 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,” Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa said on Thursday.
The son of a banker, Kato, who was sentenced to death in 2011, grew up in northern Aomori prefecture, where he graduated from a top-class university. He failed his college entrance exams and later studied auto mechanics.
Prosecutors say his self-esteem plummeted after a woman he chatted with online abruptly stopped emailing when he sent her a photo of himself. His anger with the general public grew when his comments on a public internet bulletin board, including his plans to carry out the massacre, elicited no response.
While awaiting trial, Kato wrote to a 56-year-old taxi driver, injured in the massacre, to express his regret. The victims “enjoyed 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 regretted his trial. “Let me take this opportunity to apologize,” he said.
Kato’s execution marks the first application of the death penalty in Japan since December last year, when three people convicted of murder were executed by hanging on the same day.
Japan and the United States are among the last industrialized and democratic countries to continue to use the death penalty, a punishment widely supported by Japanese public opinion.
The Japanese government believes it is “inappropriate” to abolish the death penalty, as “horrific crimes such as mass murders and murders during armed robbery are still common,” the Japanese government’s defense minister said Tuesday.
Source: La Verdad
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