An Japanese man accused of killing two people and seriously injuring a third has allegedly blamed his actions on the fact that his pet dog was put down when he was 12. Takeshi Koizumi, 46, is accused of killing bureaucrat Takehiko Yamaguchi and his wife Michiko last week and stabbing 72-year-old Yasuko Yoshihara.
He was arrested on suspicion of violating the sword and firearms control law while police prepare a murder case against him. Mr. Yamaguchi was a retired vice minister in the health ministry in Japan, while Mrs. Yoshihara's husband, Kenji, had held the same position.
After the attacks security was tightened in the Kasumigaseki district of ministry building in Tokyo as police searched for an individual who seemed to have a grudge against the government's policies on pensions, in which both men had been involved.
But e-mail messages sent to media on Saturday evening, shortly before Koizumi handed himself in to police, may reveal his true motivations. "The uprising this time is not a pension terror attack," a message sent to Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. stated.
"This is revenge for the killing by a healthcare center of a member of my family 34 years ago," the message stated. "Even now, they continue to kill as many as 500,000 innocent pets every year. They need to know that if they continue with this needless butchery then it will come back to them."
In an interview with the Yomiuri newspaper, the suspect's father confirmed that the family had adopted a stray dog when Koizumi was in elementary school but eventually had it put down because it barked constantly. He said he received a phone call from his son the night he surrendered to police, the first time he had spoken with him for a decade. "I want to tell my son to punish himself and not to be so lacking in shame as to stay alive," he said. "I don't know what to say to the family. I really should kill myself."
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