Tomohiro Kato: Japan executes Akihabara mass murderer, say reports

Tomohiro Kato STR/AFP via Getty Pictures

The japanese has executed a 39-year-old man who also killed seven people in Tokyo within 2008 during a stabbing rampage.

Tomohiro Kato committed one of the most shocking mass murders in the country’s recent history.

He has been 25 when he or she drove a truck in to a lunch-time crowd of pedestrians at Akihabara shopping district, eliminating three people.

Then he stabbed passers-by having a dagger, killing 4 and wounding 8.

He was apprehended by police on the scene and afterwards admitted his offences in his trial, stating he had been angered by online bullying.

The criminal offense sparked much debate in Japanese culture during the time over random killings, online influence as well as the failures in psychological health support designed for young people. Laws on knife ownership were also tightened in answer.

On Wednesday, eight years after Kato was sentenced to death, the government confirmed it had ordered his execution.

“The situation has been fully attempted in the courts as well as the courts’ final summary was the death word… I have taken the best care possible in considering this situation, ” Justice Ressortchef (umgangssprachlich) Yoshihisa Furukawa stated at a press meeting.

People attend injured victims lying on the road after they stabbed in the attack at Tokyo's Akihabara electronics shops district on June 8, 2008

STR/AFP via Getty Pictures

Kato was hanged in the Tokyo Detention Centre. He or she lost his problem to commute the sentence in Japan’s top court in 2015.

Kato told police at the time of his arrest: “I reached Akihabara to destroy people. It did not matter who I’d kill. ”

Kato was born right into a wealthy family and graduated from a top high school. But he failed his university entry exams and battled to maintain steady work afterwards.

During their trial, prosecutors also painted a picture of a troubled young man, who had posted many times in online forums about his frustration and alienation from society.

Prosecutors said Kato was especially demoralised after a woman he was communicating with online stopped contacting him. On his method into the city the afternoon of the attack, he’d declared his purpose to carry out a holocaust.

The Tokyo District Court which usually sentenced him this year stated his brutal crime had not indicated “a shred of humanity”.

Japan remains one of the few developed countries that will still uses the particular death penalty in spite of criticism from global and local individual rights groups.

It hanged 3 people last December. Kato’s case is the country’s first execution this year.

More than one hundred prisoners remain on loss of life row.

Mr Furukawa defended his nation’s use of capital punishment on Tuesday saying: “Since there is no end to heinous offences, I regret dying penalties remain essential. Therefore abolishing the penalty is not appropriate. ”

Japan resumed executions when Primary Minister Fumio Kishida came to power at the end of 2021. Before that will, the country had not carried out any executions for 2 years.