19 dead after Japan knife attack

A knife attack in the early hours of Tuesday morning at 2:30 a.m. local time (18:30 CET Monday) in the Japanese city of Sagamihara left at least 19 people dead and another 26 people who are reported to have been injured. The attack took place at a residential care centre for the disabled after the assailant broke a glass window on the first floor to get in.

At a news conference in Yokohama, Shinya Sakuma, an official from the Kanagawa prefecture, said the suspect, 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu, had handed himself in at a police station with the murder weapons. He has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and trespassing.

He reportedly said he wanted people with disabilities to "disappear".

Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that police had not obtained any information to suggest there was a link between the attack and Islamist extremism, Reuters reports.

Officials in Kanagawa prefecture say the suspect had worked at the Tsukui Yamayuri En facility until February. The Guardian cites Japanese broadcaster NTV which reported that Uematsu was upset because he had been fired, but that has not been independently confirmed.

Uematsu was also reportedly “involuntarily hospitalised” in February after he tried to give a letter to a Japanese politician calling for euthanasia for disabled people, and saying he would be prepared to kill disabled people himself. He was discharged from hospital in March.

According to reports, the wounded have been taken to at least six hospitals in western Tokyo. Many are said to be in a serious condition. Nine women and ten men aged between 18 and 70 were among the dead, making this the worst mass killing in the country since the second world war.