Suspect Kyota Hattori, second from right inside train, is apprehended by police officers at Kokuryo Station on the Keio Line, in the Tokyo suburban city of Chofu on Oct. 31, 2021. (Image provided by an eyewitness)
TOKYO -- The suspect in an Oct. 31 knife and arson attack that injured 17 on a train here has told police that four bottles of lighter fluid he was carrying were "'reserve bullets' I would throw after I started the fire," investigative sources have revealed to the Mainichi Shimbun.
Kyota Hattori, 24, of unknown address and occupation, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder over the attack on a Keio Line train traveling in the Tokyo suburban city of Chofu.
According to sources close to the investigation headquarters at the Metropolitan Police Department's (MPD) Chofu Police Station, Hattori has told police he "wanted to kill many passengers." Before the incident, he purchased at least 4 liters of lighter fluid, and split it into one 2-liter plastic bottle and four 500-milliliter ones which he appears to have brought with him onto the train.
On the day of the incident, Hattori boarded an express train shortly before 8:00 p.m. He is accused of using a survival knife with a blade measuring about 30 centimeters to stab a 72-year-old man in the chest on the train's third carriage. Investigators suspect Hattori proceeded to the fifth carriage, and sprayed liquid from the 2-liter plastic bottle onto four to five passengers and onto the floor, and then set it ablaze with a lighter.
Police believe he then withdrew to the second carriage with the four 500-milliliter bottles still in his backpack, and took a seat. He was arrested there on suspicion of attempting to murder the 72-year-old man.
Regarding the four unused bottles, Hattori was quoted as telling police, "There was so much smoke that I couldn't use them."
(Japanese original by Kazuki Mogami, Takuya Suzuki and Maki Kihara, Tokyo City News Department)
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