Former Japanese diplomat killed his son out of fear he would attack school children, say police

Hideaki Kumazawa, a former Japanese ambassador to the Czech Republic and previously a vice agriculture minister, is being questioned on suspicion of murdering his 44-year-old son Eiichiro on Saturday

Kumazawa told police that his son had repeatedly attacked him and his wife, and had made threatening comments towards a nearby school

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Hideaki Kumazawa, a murder suspect and former top diplomat, being escorted by police. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:00pm, 6 Jun 2019Updated: 11:08pm, 6 Jun 2019

The former Japanese diplomat arrested for killing his own son has told police he and his wife suffered years of physical abuse and he had no choice but to murder him because he feared he would attack children at a nearby school.

Hideaki Kumazawa, a former Japanese ambassador to the Czech Republic and previously a vice agriculture minister, is being questioned on suspicion of murdering his 44-year-old son, Eiichiro, on Saturday.

The incident came just two days after a man attacked 19 children and parents as they waited to take a bus to school in the Tokyo suburb of Kawasaki, killing one girl and a father of another child. The Kawasaki attacker killed himself with a series of stabs to his own throat.

Quoted in the Yomiuri newspaper, police said they were examining whether Kumazawa’s actions were a consequence of the Kawasaki attack.

The Kumazawas told investigators that their son got a place at an elite private junior high school but was bullied and stopped attending classes in his second year. He soon became violent towards his mother, but that quickly spread to his father and other members of the family.