Japanese court sentences ‘Joker’ to 23 years for Halloween stab attack on train

Kyota Hattori at a police station in the Tokyo suburb of Chofu (Kyodo News via AP)

A Japanese court has sentenced a man to 23 years in prison for stabbing a passenger and setting a fire on a Tokyo express train while dressed in a Joker costume on Halloween two years ago.

The Tachikawa branch of Tokyo District Court found Kyota Hattori, 26, guilty of attempted murder for stabbing and seriously injuring a male passenger in his 70s and of spraying lighter fluid in the train car and then lighting it to try to kill others.