A 26-year-old man, whose trial in a 2021 arson and stabbing case on Tokyo’s Keio Line began Monday, admitted to the actions and attempting to murder the man he stabbed, but denied having intended to murder anyone by starting the fire.
In the first court hearing at the Tachikawa branch of the Tokyo District Court, Kyota Hattori, 26, who wore a costume resembling that of
“Batman” villain the Joker during the incident, admitted to both stabbing a man and lighting a train carriage on fire, injuring 12 others.
However, he denied parts of the indictment, saying that there was no intent to murder when he lit the carriage on fire. “I don’t know if the arson can be considered attempted murder,” Hattori said.
In court, Hattori was clean shaven and wore a black suit. He looked straight ahead the entire time, answering questions addressed to him clearly and coherently.
Whether he intended to murder the 12 passengers in the carriage that he set on fire is most likely going to be the focus of the trial.
The attack was carried out on Halloween in 2021 at around 8 p.m. on a Keio Line train heading to Shinjuku Station. During the incident, Hattori was dressed in a purple suit, green shirt and a tie, leading to him being called the Joker in the media.
On the moving train, Hattori stabbed a 72-year-old man in the chest and then in a different carriage spread oil from a 2-liter plastic bottle and ignited it, setting the train floor and seats on fire, prosecutors said. Hattori was arrested at the scene for attempted murder.
The stabbed man fell into a critical condition but later regained consciousness. Nobody died in the attack.
Prosecutors said that Hattori “began thinking of committing mass murder so that he could be sentenced to the death penalty,” and made the plan to “stab and burn passengers on a crowded Halloween day on an express train that people couldn’t flee.”
They also revealed that toward the end of July 2021, Hattori had written in his notes app on his phone things such as “kill over 10 people on Halloween” and “the objective is to be arrested and get the death penalty, but flee the scene and don’t get caught immediately.”
Two months prior to the attack, a similar incident occurred on the Odakyu Line, in which a 36-year-old man stabbed passengers and attempted to light the train on fire. Hattori was reportedly inspired by this incident.
The defense lawyer, meanwhile, said that because passengers had already escaped from the parts of the train connected to where Hattori spread the oil, the defendant did not have the intent to kill them.
There are a total of 12 trial dates scheduled for the case, and the verdict is planned to be announced on July 31. The trial is being held with lay judges.
A total of 167 people lined up outside of the courtroom to get one of the 67 seats inside to witness the trial.
The question of how to handle a panic among passengers on crowded trains and in stations when such incidents occur has grown in prominence. On Sunday, passengers fled a Yamanote Line train after knives were seen on board and passengers panicked, resulting in three minor injuries during the chaotic evacuation. The two knives reportedly belong to a cook who was bringing them home from work, wrapped in a towel.
Source:
japantimes.co.jp, Staff, June 26, 2023
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
