Japan executes man over 2008 stabbing rampage: Reports | Death Penalty News

Tomohiro Kato was convicted of killing seven people in an attack on Tokyo’s popular Akihabara district.

Japan has executed a man convicted of killing seven people in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s popular Akihabara electronics district in 2008.

National broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media, citing unidentified sources, said Tomohiro Kato was executed on Tuesday over the attack, which began with him driving a truck into a crowd and also left 10 people injured.

The Justice Ministry declined to immediately confirm Kato’s execution.

Kato went on the stabbing spree on June 8, 2008, telling police: “I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn’t matter who I’d kill.”

He was arrested shortly afterwards.

Police said he documented his deadly journey to Akihabara on internet bulletin boards, typing messages on a mobile phone from behind the wheel of the truck and complaining of his unstable job and his loneliness.

Japan’s top court confirmed the death sentence in 2015, saying there was “no grounds for leniency”. The attack was the country’s worst mass killing in seven years.

The son of a banker, Kato grew up in Aomori prefecture in Japan’s north, where he graduated from a top high school. He failed his university entrance exams and eventually trained as a car mechanic, reports said.

Prosecutors said Kato’s self-confidence had plummeted after a woman he had chatted with online abruptly stopped emailing him after he sent her a photograph of himself.

His anger against the general public grew when his online comments, including his plans for a killing spree, drew no reaction, prosecutors said.

While awaiting trial, Kato wrote to a 56-year-old taxi driver whom he injured in the stabbing spree, expressing his remorse.

The victims “were enjoying their lives, and they had dreams, bright futures, warm families, lovers, friends and colleagues,” Kato wrote according to a copy published in the Shukan Asahi weekly.

Kato’s execution is the first in Japan this year and comes after three prisoners were hanged in December 2021.

Those were the first executions in the country in two years.

Executions in Japan are shrouded in secrecy. Those on death row might only find out the sentence will be carried out a few hours before or sometimes not at all, while their families are usually only notified afterwards, according to Amnesty International.

Amnesty, which is opposed to the death penalty in all cases, says the general trend around the world remains towards the abolition of capital punishment.