TOKYO: A Ground Self-Defense Force member was arrested Saturday for attempted murder after a woman in her 40s was stabbed and suffered serious wounds in Tokyo's Akasaka district days earlier, police said according to local media reports.
Yoichiro Otsu, a 43-year-old resident of Tokyo's Nerima Ward, has denied the allegation. According to investigative and other sources, the suspect, a sergeant 1st class who belongs to GSDF Camp Asaka in Nerima, is an acquaintance of the woman.
A man was seen fleeing the scene by bicycle after the stabbing last Sunday morning outside a live music venue in the basement of a building. The woman, a musician, was scheduled to perform later that afternoon.
Kyodo reported that Otsu is believed to have left Camp Asaka at around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday and arrived near the site where he attacked the woman at around 8 a.m. He is suspected to have stabbed the woman at about 10:30 a.m.
Security camera footage showed a man, apparently Otsu, following the woman as she entered the building. He came out from the building about 30 seconds later. An investigative source said earlier that his shoes were covered with what appeared to be plastic bags, possibly to cover his footprints.
Otsu returned to the camp sometime past noon, after traveling about 20 kilometers by bicycle in areas including Shinjuku and Nerima wards as well as Wako in Saitama Prefecture.
Otsu was quoted as telling investigators during voluntary questioning that the woman was "an acquaintance but we didn't have any issues." He insisted that he was at his workplace from morning to around midday and then went back home.
The GSDF said in a statement that it hopes for the recovery of the victim while pledging a "strict" response "based on the facts."
