Japan executes child ‘slasher’

TOKYO – Japan executed a man yesterday convicted of killing eight children in a 2001 knife attack at a school in western Japan, NHK and Kyodo News reported.

Mamoru Takuma was found guilty of barging into a crowded classroom and wildly slashing children in an attack that shocked Japan and prompted tighter security measures at the nation’s schools. The justice ministry confirmed it executed two prisoners but refused to identify them.Names of executed criminals are not released in Japan, nor are executions announced beforehand.Seven girls and one boy, ages six to eight, were killed in the June 2001 knifing, and 13 other students and two teachers were wounded.It was Japan’s worst mass killing since a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways in 1995 and was part of a series of fatal slashings in a country that has strict gun laws and has prided itself on a low crime rate.News reports at the time of the killing said Takuma – a man with a history of mental illness – launched his killing spree just hours before he was to be interrogated about a fight last year in a hotel in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city.- Nampa-APThe justice ministry confirmed it executed two prisoners but refused to identify them.Names of executed criminals are not released in Japan, nor are executions announced beforehand.Seven girls and one boy, ages six to eight, were killed in the June 2001 knifing, and 13 other students and two teachers were wounded.It was Japan’s worst mass killing since a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways in 1995 and was part of a series of fatal slashings in a country that has strict gun laws and has prided itself on a low crime rate.News reports at the time of the killing said Takuma – a man with a history of mental illness – launched his killing spree just hours before he was to be interrogated about a fight last year in a hotel in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city.- Nampa-AP