Japan begins manhunt after stabbing deaths

[Coventina]

Source: International Herald-Tribune

TOKYO: The grisly knifing death of a former Health Ministry official and his wife by an unknown assailant and the killing's possible links to a scandal involving lost pension records have thrown this normally low-crime nation into an unusual uproar.

The Japanese police have begun a nationwide manhunt for the killer of Takehiko Yamaguchi, 66, a retired vice minister of health, and his wife, Michiko, 61, whose bodies were found in the entryway of their home on Tuesday morning. Later that day, Yasuko Yoshihara, the wife of another former ministry official, was also stabbed at her home, by an assailant who posed as a parcel deliveryman, but she survived.

From an analysis of bloody footprints leading away from both scenes, the police say they believe the same man carried out the two attacks. Government officials have proclaimed the attacks acts of terrorism and dispatched hundreds of policemen and security guards to protect government offices and the homes of dozens of current and former Health Ministry officials.

Both former officials apparently targeted by the attacker held high positions at the Health Ministry in the 1980s and 1990s, when tens of millions of pension records were lost after being misplaced or incorrectly entered into computers. The police said the attacks may have been motivated by the lost pension records, which cause national outrage when they came to light last year.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/21/asia/japan.php

[Demeter]

1. I Suppose Finding the Records Was Too Much Like Work