Osaka Prefectural Police headquarters (Mainichi/Tsuyoshi Fujita)

       OSAKA -- Police are poised to arrest a man who reported the discovery of a body in a home in Osaka's Chuo Ward in October on suspicion of murder.

       The 65-year-old man, a South Korean national identified as Kim Hwan-hui, was apparently an acquaintance of the victim, and police have decided to arrest him as early as Dec. 6 due to growing suspicions he was involved in the death, according to investigative sources.

       Kim was the first person to discover the victim's body. He has already been indicted on a charge of assaulting the victim on a daily basis.

       The deceased is believed to be Kazuo Yatsuda, a computer programing company manager who lived in the apartment where the body was found, aged 67 at the time. Police are trying to confirm the identity of the victim and are examining possible motives.

       Kim is suspected of hitting the victim in the head with a blunt object in late September, causing him to die from shock brought on by loss of blood. Kim phoned for an ambulance on Oct. 2, saying that he found the body when he visited the apartment.

       (Japanese original by Kumiko Yasumoto and Yusuke Kori, Osaka City News Department)

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