Police in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, have arrested a 38-year-old man after he kept his mother’s body in their apartment for a year.

According to police, Ryotaro Taniguchi, a company employee, lived with his mother – who was bedridden -- until she died at the age of 76 in June last year. He was quoted by police as saying his mother died of an illness and that he didn’t want to spend money on a funeral for her.

On Friday, Taniguchi told a work colleague about his mother and his colleague contacted police who found the woman’s skeletonized remains in a futon.

Police are investigating to see whether Taniguchi continued to receive his mother's pension payments after her death.

© Japan Today </s> OSAKA (TR) – Osaka Prefectural Police have arrested a 38-year-old man after he was found to have lived with the corpse of his mother in their residence in Toyonaka City for the past year, reports the Sankei Shimbun (June 29).

On Friday, police arrested Ryotaro Taniguchi, a company employee, after the discovery of the skeletal remains atop a futon in a room at the residence he shared with his mother in the Kumanocho area.

Officers later accused Taniguchi of abandoning a corpse. “My mother died a natural death,” the suspect told police. “I couldn’t pay for a funeral.”

Taniguchi said that his mother died at the age 76 in June of last year. She was bedridden at the time.

Earlier on the day of the discovery, Taniguchi told a colleague at work, “My mother is dead at home.” The colleague then tipped off police. </s> Police in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture, said Friday they have arrested a 53-year-old unemployed man for not reporting the death of his 86-year-old father so that he could keep collecting the dead man’s pension.

According to police, Kiyotaka Koike’s father Sueo died last December, reportedly of natural causes. Koike didn’t notify the authorities and kept the body in the house.

Koike, who was arrested Thursday on a charge of abandoning a body, was quoted by police as saying he had no money to pay for a funeral and that he needed his father’s pension for living expenses.

The body was found on June 4 when a city welfare official visited the house after not having heard from Sueo for a long time. The body was wrapped in a blanket lying on a futon in a bedroom.

© Japan Today </s> OSAKA (THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - A man was arrested on Monday (June 17) morning on suspicion of attempted murder over the stabbing of a police officer in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, the previous day.

Following the attack on the officer, whose handgun was also stolen, police found a man suspected of fleeing the scene in a nearby city in Osaka Prefecture. The suspect was identified as part-time worker Yujiro Iimori, 33, of Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo. Iimori had the handgun with him when Osaka prefectural police arrested him.

According to police, Iimori denied the allegation of attempted murder. They will further investigate his possible motives and other elements of the case.

Iimori is suspected of attempting to murder on-duty policeman Suzunosuke Kose, 26, by stabbing him in the chest in a parking space of the Senriyama police box in Suita at about 5.38am on Sunday, police said. Iimori is also suspected of stealing officer Kose's handgun, loaded with five bullets.

Officer Kose is unconscious and in critical condition.

In response to questioning, Iimori reportedly said: "That's not something I did. I think it happened because my illness got worse and the people around me got worse."

Iimori has remained silent on the subject of his identity and refuses to sign a written record of the questioning.

According to the prefectural police, Iimori has received psychosomatic treatment and was issued a mental disorder certificate. The police will examine whether Iimori can be held criminally responsible.

Iimori lives with his parents in a condominium in Shinagawa Ward, and once lived in Suita. Some information suggests that he served in the Maritime Self-Defence Force from April to September 2009.

Investigators found Iimori lying on a bench in a forest in Minoo, Osaka Prefecture, and arrested him at 6.34am on Monday. The bench is about 8km north of the police box. When arrested, Iimori had approximately ¥100,000 (S$1,266) in cash and his driver's licence. There was a plastic bag underneath the bench containing the police handgun.

There were signs that one bullet out of five had been fired. At about 6am on Sunday, immediately after the attack, an explosive sound was heard in a residential area near the police box. Police are investigating the possibility that Iimori fired the gun while fleeing from the scene.

A suspicious man was recorded wandering around by a security camera at the Senriyama police box before the attack, and the prefectural police released a screen grab from the footage.

Iimori's father, an executive at Kansai Television, contacted the police, saying, "(The man in the screen grab) looks like my son."

A hotel in Suita also reported to police that a guest who stayed there last Friday night appeared to be the man in the image.

Based on such tips, the prefectural police concluded Iimori was involved in the attack and obtained an arrest warrant early Monday. The police also put Iimori on a nationwide wanted list.

The police collected security video footage from a wide range of areas in a bid to track Iimori's movements, and determined that a man who appeared to be Iimori was heading toward the forest in Minoo at about 8pm on Sunday. The police combed the forest after daybreak on Monday.

Osaka prefectural police chief Takahisa Ishida issued a statement saying: "I am sorry we caused fear among the people in the prefecture. We will try to ascertain the whole picture of the case and proceed with police activities for the peace and safety (of the public)." </s> The Supreme Court said Wednesday it has rejected lower and high court decisions to hold a retrial for a 92-year-old woman who served 10 years in prison over the 1979 murder of her former brother-in-law in Kagoshima Prefecture.

All five Supreme Court judges made the unanimous decision on Tuesday to dismiss the retrial of Ayako Haraguchi after the district court granted the retrial request and the high court upheld the decision.

It is the first time since 1975 that the top court has rejected a retrial decision made by a district court and upheld by a high court.

Both the Kagoshima District Court and the Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court had agreed to a retrial in June 2017 and March 2018, respectively. Prosecutors appealed both decisions.

The defense submitted a forensic report that said there was a high chance that the death of her former brother-in-law, Kunio Nakamura, 42, was caused by an accident. Confessions by her relatives were not credible as they may have been influenced by investigative authorities, they said.

However, the Supreme Court said the previous testimonies were trustworthy, while the new evidence supporting an accidental death had no probative value as the forensics experts had not personally seen the body.

“This is not acceptable,” head defense lawyer Masami Mori said at a news conference Wednesday after the verdict. “I feel regret and am at a loss for words whenever I think about proving her innocence while she is alive.”

The 92-year-old has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Haraguchi was arrested in October 1979 along with three other family members, including her husband at the time, on suspicion of strangling Nakamura with a towel and abandoning his body in a cattle barn beside his home in the town of Osaki earlier that month.

In 1980, the district court found Haraguchi guilty of killing Nakamura on the grounds that her sister-in-law said Haraguchi proposed the murder to her husband, suggesting she had been unhappy about Nakamura’s conduct. Her sentence was finalized in 1981.

Her husband was sentenced to eight years in prison. Haraguchi later divorced him and he died in 1993. The Supreme Court also rejected Tuesday a request for his retrial submitted by a relative.

Haraguchi filed a request for her retrial in 1995 and again in 2010, but both were subsequently rejected. This was her third attempt. </s> Malaysia will reopen the investigation into the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, a case that has cast a shadow over the government of former prime minister Najib Razak for more than a decade.

In June 2006, a pregnant Altantuya was taken to a forest and shot twice in the head and then her body blown up with explosives. Two bodyguards working for Najib, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar, were convicted of the murder and sent to jail in 2008, but a neither a motive for the crime, nor who ordered the killing, was ever investigated.

“I can confirm we are reopening investigations,” inspector-general of police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun said on Friday. He confirmed that a new police report submitted by Altantuya’s father on Wednesday was one reason for the new investigation.

Altantuya had been the lover of Abdul Razak Baginda, a known associate of Najib, and many believe that her involvement in a defence deal to purchase two French Scorpene submarines may have led to her death. Both Baginda and Najib were alleged to have taken multi-million dollar backhanders for the deal, which they both deny.

Najib has always denied ever even meeting Altantuya and Baginda was cleared of all charges for abetting her murder. Asked about the Altantuya case this week, Najib said: “I’m on record to have sworn in a mosque in the name of Allah that I had nothing to do with the case. I still maintain that I only knew she died four, five days after the death … that was the first time I heard about her. There is no evidence to show I ever knew her.”

On Wednesday, Altantuya’s father, Steve Shaariibuu, submitted a police report about her death, citing new evidence. He called for investigation into why Najib’s aide, Musa Shafri, was never called as a witness in the original trial. Musa was Azilah and Sirul’s boss and it is alleged he gave them the direct order to carry out her killing.

“I believe that if not for Musa, Azilah and Sirul would not have come to Razak’s house that day and taken my daughter away and she would very likely still be alive today,” said Shaariibuu in the police report.

“Musa therefore is a very crucial witness as he would be able to provide information as to who instructed him to secure Azilah and Sirul’s said attendance and for what purpose.”

Sirul is in detention in Australia, after he fled Malaysia while out on bail. He said recently he would comply with a new investigation into Altantuya’s death and sources told the Guardian that Australian authorities have given the green light to deport Sirul back to Malaysia if he is treated fairly. Malaysia have confirmed it is considering dropping the death penalty charges against Sirul so he can be extradited. </s> KUALA LUMPUR: The father of murdered Mongolian model Àltantuya Shaariibuu lodged a police report on Wednesday (Jun 20) to jumpstart the process of reopening investigations into the case, nearly 12 years after she was killed in Malaysia.

"I, Shaariibuu Setev make this report for the purpose of investigations being commenced by the police on the murder of my daughter Altantuya Shhariibuu on 19.10.2006," said Shaariibuu in the police report.

"Throughout the said murder trial, no evidence was led by the prosecution as to who ordered my daughter's murder or the motive behind it, although I believe that this was relevant to the case."

His lawyer, Ramkarpal Singh, said the report is a first step in reopening the case.

"I think there is a very good chance of that happening within the next three to four months," Ramkarpal told reporters outside the Dang Wangi police station in Kuala Lumpur.

Altantuya, 28, was shot dead and her body blown up by military-grade C4 explosives in Shah Alam in 2006.

She left behind two sons, one of them is disabled and bedridden.

Two policemen, Sirul Azhar Umar and Azilah Hadri, who were former bodyguards of former prime minister Najib Razak, were found guilty and sentenced to death in 2015.

Azilah is currently on death row at Kajang prison, while Sirul fled to Australia before sentencing and is being held in an Australian immigration detention centre.

On Wednesday, lawyer Ramkarpal said the former aide-de-camp of Mr Najib, Musa Safri, was named as a key witness in the police report filed by Altantuya’s father.

"Musa Safri, he's certainly a very crucial witness. This is something the police must take into account. Why did the prosecution not call him in the past? It's a glaring omission on his (prosecutor's) part," said Ramkarpal.

"He is important because according to the prosecution's criminal case, he played a very significant role. He should be called up to explain what the role was," said Ramkarpal.

Altantuya was said to be the lover of Abdul Razak Baginda - a defence analyst who advised Mr Najib between 2000 and 2008 when he was then the defence minister.

Razak was charged with abetment in the murder, but was freed.

Shaariibuu, who came to Malaysia to seek a fresh probe into his daughter’s murder, will meet Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at 5pm on Wednesday in Putrajaya to discuss the possibility of convening a Royal Commission of Inquiry into her death. </s> Police on Tuesday sent a man suspected of stabbing a police officer and stealing his gun in Osaka Prefecture to prosecutors, one day after his arrest.

The police said Yujiro Iimori, 33, who is charged with attempted murder and robbery, attacked Suzunosuke Kose, 26, with a knife at 5:38 a.m. Sunday at a police box in the city of Suita.

The knife used in the attack had a blade as long as 15 centimeters. The police said it penetrated Kose's lung, reaching his heart. Kose was reportedly stabbed at least seven times and remains in a coma.

While Iimori has denied the allegations, he also blamed the incident on his illness, according to investigators. He is a holder of a mental disability certificate.

The police said about 10 minutes before the attack, someone, who gave the name of one of Imori's former classmates, called in a report of a home break-in.

The police suspect it was Iimori making a false report in an attempt to lure police officers from the police box, according to investigative sources.

Iimori had contacted a junior high school classmate through Facebook and asked for his address before the incident, the sources said.

About three and a half hours after the stabbing, a man with blood on his hands purchased clothes and shoes at a nearby shopping mall. Fingerprints left on the shoebox, which was left at the mall, and those on a knife cover found at the crime scene matched, according to the sources.

Iimori was arrested early Monday after the police found him on a bench on a mountain trail, not far from the crime scene and in possession of the stolen pistol.

The gun contained five bullets when stolen, but only four when it was retrieved, the police said. There were signs the gun had been fired and residents near the police box reported hearing an explosive sound about 20 minutes after the attack.

Iimori was wearing a light blue cap, a dark red jacket, navy pants and shoes at the time of his arrest. But security camera footage shows him walking around the police box just before the attack wearing a white cap.

The police suspect Iimori changed into different clothing as he fled and are now searching for the clothes and shoes he had on earlier. </s> OSAKA (TR) – Osaka Prefectural Police have arrested a man for allegedly stabbing a police officer and stealing his gun in Suita City on Sunday, reports Fuji News Network (June 17).

At around 5:30 a.m. Yujiro Iimori, 33, allegedly used a knife to stab 26-year-old officer Suzunosuke Kose at the Senriyama Police Box. He then stole the officer’s gun, containing five rounds of ammunition, before fleeing the scene.

Kose is currently unconscious in a hospital, police said.

After police publicly released security camera footage showing the suspected perpetrator, Iimori’s father contacted police, believing the person was his son.

At around 6:30 a.m. on Monday, officers apprehended Iimori in Mino City on suspicion of attempted murder. The gun, which contained four bullets, was also retrieved from the suspect.

The stabbing took place after two colleagues responded to call about a break-in. Police later determined that the call, which turned out to be fake, was made from public phone located about 800 meters from the police box, police said.

Police are now seeking a motive for the crime.
In the second similar case within a week, police in Toyonaka, Japan, arrest Ryotaro Taniguchi for keeping the body of his deceased mother a year after her death. He is quoted as saying he didn't want to pay for the funeral. Police are investigating whether or not Taniguchi continued to receive his mother's pension.