(ANSA) — TOKYO, JULY 26 — A 39-year-old Japanese man sentenced to death for killing seven people in June 2008 on the streets of Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics district, has been executed. This was reported today by local media, including the public broadcaster NHK.
Tomohiro Kato had driven a truck into passers-by in broad daylight before getting out of the vehicle and stabbing random people in the crowd with a double-edged sword, killing seven and wounding ten. His death sentence was upheld by the Court of Appeal in September 2012, following a first-instance verdict in March 2011. Japan’s Supreme Court dismissed Kato’s appeal in 2015 and made the verdict final.
The then precarious worker in an auto parts factory in a small town in central Japan learned shortly before the massacre that his contract would expire at the end of June 2008.
Hosted by his employer, he confided online that he feared becoming homeless. During an audition, Kato had also stated that he committed the massacre because of the criticism he faced online.
After the massacre, the Japanese authorities banned the possession of double-edged daggers with a blade length of more than 5.5 centimeters.
It is the first use of the death penalty in Japan since last December, when three people convicted of murder were hanged. Japan, along with the United States, is one of the last industrialized and democratic countries to still use the death penalty, a condemnation widely supported by Japanese public opinion. (HAND).
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