Ibaraki Prefectural Police headquarters (Mainichi/Kotone Nirasawa)

       MITO -- A 70-year-old man was arrested on Oct. 18 on suspicion of keeping his younger brother's corpse at home instead of properly dealing with his remains.

       Ibaraki Prefectural Police's Takahagi Police Station arrested Nobuo Sakashita, a resident of Kitaibaraki, Ibaraki Prefecture, on suspicion of abandoning a corpse. He has reportedly told police, "I left him though I thought it was wrong."

       The suspect allegedly left the corpse of his younger brother, who was in his 60s, at home between December 2020 and Oct. 18 this year.

       According to the police station, a male neighbor, 83, had asked Sakashita a few days earlier about his brother, who had not been seen for a while. Sakashita apparently replied that his brother had died in December but that he had not dealt with his body. The neighbor reported the matter to the police station on Oct. 18. An officer who arrived at the scene is said to have found the brother's body in a "kotatsu" -- a table with an electric heater underneath -- covered by a blanket.

       The suspect was living in the two-story wooden home with the brother. Sakashita has reportedly not clearly explained the cause of the sibling's death, but said he had been inclined to ill health.

       (Japanese original by Minori Nagaya, Mito Bureau)

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