Tomohiro Kato Tokyo Knife Killer

加藤智大容

More details have emerged about Tomohiro Kato, the 25-year-old man who drove a hired van into a crowd in Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics and manga center, and then ran amok killing seven people and injuring 10 others.



Born in Aomori in northern Japan, Kato was living in Susono in Shizuoka Prefecture and employed in a car-parts factory there, earning around 1,800 USD a month. Kato lived alone and when questioned by police said he had grown "tired of life," "hated the world" and "that anyone would do" (daredemo yokatta) for his victims.



Kato had announced his intentions to kill on a cell phone (i-mode) internet site early on the morning of the frenzied attack. Another upload, only twenty minutes before the attack, stated: "It's time."



Kato supposedly timed his attack to coincide with a similar knife attack when Mamoru Takuma, a man with a history of mental illness, killed 8 children at an Osaka primary school in 2001.

The Japanese mass media were running through the details of the attacks on early morning TV and searching for answers as to why Kato went on the rampage and why he chose Akihabara as his target.

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