p2pnet news Crime:- Tomohiro Kato, 25, said by police say to have confessed to a murderous rampage on Sunday, killing seven people, “planned and executed the attack while enmeshed in Japan’s near-ubiquitous matrix of surveillance cameras and high-speed wireless networks,” says the Washington Post.

“Private surveillance cameras recorded his purchase of knives in a military surplus store two days before the killing spree, when he laughed with a salesman and made stabbing motions,” it says.

And street surveillance cameras, “also caught his image Sunday, when he plowed a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in central Tokyo,” and begin stabbing people, says the story, going on

“But in the days and hours leading up to the attack, Kato took considerable time to inform the wireless matrix - or at least one Web site on it - where he was, what he was thinking and what mayhem he had planned.”

“The selection of Akihabara —- a district famed as the cradle of modern Japanese youth culture —- appears to have been a central part of the killer’s scheme,” says Mainichi Japan, continuing:

“And in plotting his spree, Tomohiro Kato appears to have chosen people he considered most like him: the obsessive geeks of a subculture known as otaku.

“Friends of Mr Kato described him yesterday as a typical Akihabara type —- a cartoonist of reasonable talent who would “lose himself for hours in cyberspace”. When he went to karaoke, he would select the theme tunes of TV animations; when it came to women he would declare that he was ‘only interested in two-dimensional girlfriends’.”

Investigators, “are working to establish how much of the June 8 massacre was premeditated, as Kato, 25, had deleted messages and other information he sent from his mobile phone prior to the attack that also left 10 other people injured”.

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Washington Post - Killer in Japan Made His Intentions Public, June 14, 2008
Mainichi Japan - Akihabara random killer stabbed three people who were caring for victims, June 16, 2008

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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