Man Stabs 19 Hospital Patients To Death Injures 26

Live Satoshi Uematsu named as suspect in Japan care home stabbing that killed 19 – latest

Man armed with a knife attacked facility for disabled people in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo, before turning himself in to police.

The man who claimed he wanted to kill disabled people left at least 19 dead and 26 others injured after a knife attack at a care facility in Japan.

Petrified staff at the Tsukui Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) facility in Sagamihara, south of Tokyo, called police at about 2.30am local time after the suspect, named as Satoshi Uematsu, launched his attack. It was the country’s worst mass killing in decades.

Emergency workers said at least 20 of the wounded had sustained serious injuries, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Police in Kanagawa prefecture said Uematsu had driven to the nearby Tsukui police station and turned himself in after the attack.

“I did it,” the 26-year-old former employee of the facility was quoted as saying. “It is better that disabled people disappear,” he was said to have added.

Uematsu, a resident of Sagamighara, was carrying a bag full of knives and other sharp-edged tools, some of which were bloodstained, when he handed himself in.

A police spokesman declined to give details of the investigation, saying: “We are still confirming details of the case.”

Nine women and 10 men were killed, the fire department was quoted as saying, and they ranged in age from 18 to 70.

Police have yet to formally establish a motive for the attack. However, Uematsu was put in hospital earlier this year for almost two weeks after he said he would kill disabled people.

Authorities said Uematsu had been “involuntarily committed” to hospital on 19 February, after police in the town of Tsukui contacted him in response to a letter he had attempted to pass to the speaker of the lower house of Japan’s parliament.