A man accused of stabbing eight children to death in Japan told police he targetted an elite school for his killing spree to make sure he got the death penalty.
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A Japanese
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"The reason why I picked Ikeda Elementary School was because I thought I would surely be sentenced to death if I killed elite and intelligent children," Mr Mamoru Takuma was quoted as telling investigators.
Mr Takuma, who had been hospitalized in the past for schizophrenia, went on a bloody 12-minute rampage with a butcher's knife on Friday at the school in Ikeda, near Osaka, killing eight children and injuring 13 others and two teachers.
Having taken a massive dose of drugs and barely conscious, he told police immediately after being arrested that he had failed in several suicide attempts and wanted to be executed.
At first Takuma denied any knowledge of having been at the school, however, claiming to have stabbed about 100 people at the railway station, but he later confessed to the school slaughter, the official said.
Police have still been unable to question children who survived the horrific attack because they are traumatised.
Mr Takuma was a janitor at an elementary school in nearby Itami until early 1999 when he was arrested for allegedly lacing tea with tranquilisers and serving it to four teachers at the school, police said.
He confessed but was freed on the grounds that he was mentally unstable, and hospitalized instead.
AFP