Japanese man gets 23 years in jail for Halloween attack dressed as ‘Joker’

A court in Tokyo on Monday sentenced a man to 23 years in jail after finding him guilty of attempted murder and starting a fire on a train in the Japanese capital while dressed as comic book villain– the Joker.

The verdict for the 2021 Halloween attack was handed down by the Tokyo District Court’s Tachikawa branch, a spokeswoman for the court told the media.

Twenty-six-year-old Kyota Hattori was convicted of stabbing a male passenger in his 70s and trying to kill 12 other people by starting a blaze inside a passenger train, Jiji Press and other local media said.

Hattori had reportedly told investigators that he wanted to kill people and be given the death penalty. He also told them he had spread lighter fluid in the train.

In Japan, violent crime is rare, but there are occasional stabbings and even shootings, including the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe last year.

In August 2021, nine people were wounded, one of them seriously, in a stabbing attack on a commuter train in Tokyo, with the suspect later handing himself in after fleeing the scene.

In a separate attack that same month, two people suffered burns in an acid attack at a Tokyo subway station.