Nov 29 (Japan Times) - A man pleaded guilty Thursday to murdering a passenger and trying to kill two others in a random knife attack on a shinkansen last year.
According to the indictment, Ichiro Kojima, 23, seriously wounded two women in their 20s with a machete on the Nozomi 265 train en route from Tokyo to Osaka on the evening of June 9, 2018. He also used a knife and machete to fatally stab Kotaro Umeda, 38, who intervened in the attack against the women.
“I did it with the intent to kill,†Kojima said in the first court hearing in his lay judge trial held at the Odawara branch of the Yokohama District Court.
Prosecutors said Kojima found it too difficult to live on his own and “wanted to go to prison†as he had been homeless and sleeping outdoors, including in a park in Nagano Prefecture.
Kojima, who did not have a good relationship with his parents, quit work due to stress and lived with his grandmother until he left her home in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, in December 2017, prosecutors said.
He underwent a psychiatric examination over a four-month period before prosecutors ruled him fit to face a criminal trial and indicted him in November last year.
Source: ANNnewsCH
