School knife attack man was janitor

A knifeman who killed at least eight children and injured 21 more people in a Japanese classroom has been identified as a former janitor in another school.

The attack, Japan’s worst mass-killing since a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways six years ago, stunned the nation.

The 37-year-old attacker was subdued by two male teachers and arrested immediately after the stabbings, which happened in the western city of Osaka.

He once worked as a janitor at a different elementary school in a nearby city, and has an arrest record.

Two children died at the scene and the other six died at the hospital, said local Fire Department spokesman Tetsuo Higashimoto.

Most of the wounded - all of them children apart from three teachers - suffered minor cuts, but six were in serious condition.

Kaoru Nakatani, head of Osaka Education University, which operates the elementary school, which has nearly 700 pupils, said: ‘‘We are filled with anger over this unfortunate situation.’’

The killings were the worst mass assault in Japan since 1995, when a doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in a poison gas attack on the Tokyo subways in 1995.

Most of today’s victims were first- or second-grade students - children aged between six and eight.

Six of the dead were second-grade girls, but the ages of the other victims were not immediately known.

Police said the attacker, identified as Mamoru Takuma, had a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade.

He was arrested at the scene, but was also injured and taken to a local hospital.

His motive was not immediately clear, though NHK and other Japanese media reported that he might have taken a high dose of tranquillisers before the attack.

Takuma was arrested in March 1999 and accused of putting tranquilliser in the tea of four teachers at the school where he worked, but was never prosecuted because he suffered from psychological problems, said Nobuharu Sugita, an official with the police in Itami, a city near Osaka.

National broadcaster NHK said Takuma climbed into a first-grade classroom from a verandah and began slashing children at the back of the room.

He then moved into the hall, slashing several children in their sides and arms as he moved into other classrooms.

As two teachers tackled the knifeman, school staff called the police and rushed the children out to the school playground.

The stabbings, during a morning recess period, come as Japan is grappling with an upswing in violent crime.

The country’s strict gun laws mean most of the attacks are committed with knives.