Jan 18 (Japan Times) - The 17-year-old boy who slashed three people outside a university entrance examination venue in Tokyo on Saturday has told police that he had failed in his attempt to spread liquid on a subway train and set fire to it, investigative sources said Monday.
The Metropolitan Police Department turned over the boy to public prosecutors on Monday on suspicion of attempted murder over the knife attack.
With the suspect also telling police that he planned to kill himself after committing a murder, the police suspect that he attempted to entangle other passengers of the train in an arson incident, the sources said.
According to the police and Tokyo Metro Co., Akabane-iwabuchi Station of the subway operator’s Nanboku Line received a passenger report around 8:30 a.m. Saturday that liquid was leaking from a backpack abandoned in a train car. Subsequent analysis found that the liquid was combustible.
The teenage suspect, a high school student from Nagoya, is believed to have left the backpack.
Surveillance camera footage showed a male thought to be the teen setting fire to what appeared to be an ignition agent and throwing it near the ticket gate at the Nanboku Line’s Todaimae Station, soon before the knife attack.
At the station, traces of small fires were detected in at least eight locations, as well as the boy’s wallet, which included Y20,000 in cash.
