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Agence France-Presse

The Japanese man who admitted to murdering 19 people at a centre for the mentally disabled grinned to news cameras Wednesday before being questioned over the country’s worst killing spree in decades.
The 26-year-old reportedly said he wanted all disabled people to “disappear” after the knife rampage that left his victims in pools of blood, including some who were stabbed in the neck.
‘I can wipe out a total of 470 disabled individuals’: read disturbing letter by man accused of mass stabbing at Japanese care facility
With a blue jacket draped over his head, Satoshi Uematsu was escorted out of a police station into a waiting van before a crowd of flashing news cameras.
Inside the vehicle with the jacket removed, he smiled broadly in footage broadcast on morning news shows.

An official at the Tsukui police station where Uematsu was held after the attack declined to comment on the investigation, only confirming that he was being transported to prosecutors for questioning.
Uematsu is accused of breaking into the Tsukui Yamayuri-en care centre in the forested hills of Sagamihara city, outside of Tokyo, in the early hours of Tuesday.
‘It’s better the disabled disappear’: 19 people stabbed to death at Japanese care facility by ‘euthanasia advocate’
He reportedly tied up two caregivers before stabbing residents, leaving a total of 26 people injured, 13 of them severely.
He quickly turned himself in at a police station, carrying bloodied knives and admitting to officers: “I did it”.

He reportedly also said: “The disabled should all disappear.”
Security camera footage taken near the centre showed a vehicle arriving there shortly before the attack began. The driver opened the boot to remove objects, before walking toward the facility.
At around 2:50 am, shortly after an emergency call was made to police from the centre, the footage shows the driver dashing back to the vehicle, carrying a large bag in his right hand.
Uematsu left his job at the care home and was forcibly hospitalised in February after telling colleagues he intended to kill disabled people at the centre.

But he was discharged 12 days later when a doctor deemed he was not a threat.
He had previously delivered a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament in which he threatened to kill hundreds of disabled people, outlining a broad plan for night-time attacks against Tsukui Yamayuri-en and another facility.
In the rambling letter he presented a vision of a society in which the seriously handicapped could be euthanised with the approval of family members since “handicapped people only create unhappiness”.
The top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun daily called the case “appalling”, and urged a probe of the decision to release Uematsu from medical care.

“It is a matter of great regret for society to let such a serious stabbing incident happen,” it said in an editorial which called for increased security at care facilities.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world and this week’s killing spree is believed to be the nation’s worst since 1938, when a man armed with an axe, sword and rifle went on a rampage that left 30 people dead.
Additional reporting by Kyodo


Revealed: the grinning maniac who stabbed 19 to death in Japan, because he wanted to rid world of disabled people

Satoshi Uematsu, who admitted stabbing dozens of residents at a facility for the disabled, grins for photographers as he is taken away in a police vehicle. Photo: Kyodo

Members of the media crowd outside as police officers raid the house of Satoshi Uematsu, suspected of a deadly attack on a facility for the disabled, in Sagamihara, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, July 27, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Photographers surround a vehicle carrying Satoshi Uematsu, a man under arrest in connection with a mass stabbing that has left 19 people dead at a mental health care facility, as he is sent to prosecutors on July 27, 2016. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Satoshi Uematsu is taken from a police station in Sagamihara, west of Tokyo, to prosecutors on July 27, 2016, after being arrested the previous day in connection with a mass stabbing that has left 19 people dead at a mental health care facility. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Photo taken July 26, 2016, from a Kyodo News helicopter shows a residential care facility for persons with mental disabilities in Sagamihara, west of Tokyo, where at least 19 people were killed in a stabbing rampage. A 26-year-old man, Satoshi Uematsu, was arrested after turning himself in at a police station. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

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Satoshi Uematsu, the 26-year-old former employee who went on a stabbing spree at a care facility near Tokyo has “no remorse” about the mass killing, investigative sources said
