Japan has hanged 39-year-old, Tomohiro Kato, to death, for mass killing, local media reports say. Reports say Kato was hanged in the Tokyo Detention Centre. Kato, it would be recalled killed seven people in Tokyo in 2008 during a stabbing spree. At the time he carried out the killings, he was 25 years old. He drove a truck into a lunch-time crowd of pedestrians at Akihabara shopping district, killing three people, moving on to stab passers-by with a dagger, killing four and wounding eight.
Police arrested him at the scene of the crimes. During his trial, he admitted committing the crimes.
Kato told the court during his trial that he had been angered by online bullying. A debate ensued about random killings, online influence and the failures in mental health support for young people in Japanese society, with the country’s laws on knife ownership being tightened in response.
The Tokyo District Court sentenced Kato in 2011, saying his brutal crime had not indicated “a shred of humanity”. Earlier today, Tuesday, July 26, 2022, tye Government of Japan, according to multiple local media reports monitored by African Entertainment, confirmed it had ordered Kato’s execution. Japan’s Justice Minister, Yoshihisa Furukawa, told journalists at a press conference that “The case has been fully tried in the courts and the courts’ final conclusion was the death sentence… I have taken the greatest care possible in considering this case.”
Kato lost his challenge to commute the sentence in Japan’s top court in 2015.
He had told police at the time of his arrest that “I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn’t matter who I’d kill.” African Entertainment the late Kato was born into a wealthy family and graduated from a top high school but failed his university entrance exams and struggled to maintain steady employment afterwards.
He was said to have posted several times in online forums about his anger and alienation from society.
During his trial, prosecutors told the court that Kato was particularly demoralised after a woman he was chatting with online stopped emailing him. On his way into the city the day of the attack, he’d declared his intention to carry out a mass murder.
