A suspect has been arrested for attempted murder after 17 people were injured in a knife and fire attack on a train in Tokyo that was carried out by a man wearing a Joker costume.
Witnesses told public broadcaster NHK how petrified passengers had fled to adjoining carriages and jumped out of windows during the attack, which occurred on Sunday, when the Japanese capital was full of Halloween revelers, many in costume.
The suspect, who has been named as 24-year-old Kyota Hattori, told police that he “adores” the Joker character from the Batman films, Kyodo news agency reported.
Photo: Twitter / @SIZ33 / via Reuters
He was quoted by police as saying that he had wanted to kill multiple people and receive the death penalty, it added.
Photographs and videos posted on social media showed a man wearing a green shirt and purple suit. He allegedly attacked passengers on the Keio Line train with a knife and started a fire inside the carriage using lighter fluid.
Kyodo said a male passenger in his 70s was in critical condition after being stabbed in the chest. Sixteen other people suffered minor injuries, including smoke inhalation.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno yesterday described the incident as “atrocious and brutal.”
A video clip published by NHK showed panicked passengers running down the train as smoke filled the carriage, with flames also visible.
Another video posted on Twitter showed people climbing through windows to escape the train at a station.
The line operator said services had been partially suspended after “an incident involving injuries” took place just before 8pm near Kokury in Tokyo’s western suburbs. The express train had been bound for Shinjuku, the world’s busiest railway station.
“At first I thought it was something like a Halloween event, but I rushed away as a man carrying a long knife came in. I was very fortunate not to be injured,” a man who was on the train told NHK.
The perpetrator showed no emotion during the attack, a female passenger said.
“He held a knife and started spreading liquid,” she said. “He was committing this act without showing any emotion, just mechanically. I think that brought fear to everyone.”
Dozens of firefighters and police officers were seen working outside the station.
Violent crime is rare in Japan, but in August nine people were wounded, one of them seriously, in a stabbing on a commuter train in Tokyo, with the suspect fleeing the scene and later handing himself in.
In a separate attack in August, two people suffered burns in an acid attack at a Tokyo subway station.
Japan has strict gun laws, but there are occasional violent crimes involving other weapons.
A man in 2019 killed two people, including a schoolgirl, and wounded more than a dozen in a rampage that targeted children as they waited for a bus, while a man in 2018 was arrested in central Japan after stabbing one person to death and injuring two others on a bullet train.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS