Japan executes ‘Akihabara killer’ who killed seven people in 2008

By: MRT Desk

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Japan executed this Tuesday (07.26.2022) the popularly known as “Akihabara murderer”, a man who in 2008 killed seven people and injured ten others in the crowded area of ​​the Tokyo electronics district, announced the Ministry of Justice.

Tomohiro Kato, 39, was sentenced to death for fatally running over three pedestrians with a truck, before getting out of the vehicle and fatally stabbing four other people in the Akihabara shopping district.

Kato was executed by hanging, as established by Japanese law, in the Tokyo detention center where he was imprisoned, explained the Japanese Minister of Justice, Yoshihisa Furukawa, at a press conference called to announce the execution.

Furukawa pointed out that Kato charged “indiscriminately leaving 7 dead after exhaustive preparation”, in a “cruel” case that “influenced Japanese society”.

The event, also known as the “Akihabara massacre”, took place on June 8, 2008, when Kato broke into Akihabara on a Sunday with a truck and rammed into the crowd on its main street, which that day was closed to the Road Traffic.

After running over five people, three of whom died, Kato got out of the truck and stabbed a dozen walkers, four of whom were killed.

The event shocked Japan, which prohibited until 2011 that the area is pedestrianized again on Sundays, and is also one of the most remembered incidents internationally.

Kato was sentenced to death in 2011 and in 2015 the case was finally closed with the rejection by the Supreme Court of Japan of the last possible appeal of the defense, which argued that the inmate was not in full control of his mental faculties at the time. time of the events due to severe psychological stress.

Today’s execution follows the attacks last December when three inmates were executed for murder in the first executions in the country in two years, and it is the second execution of capital punishment since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived at the position in October 2021.

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