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Cops surf web to find killer
05/12/2005 16:58 - (SA)
Tokyo - Japanese police searching for the killer of a seven-year-old girl are studying internet bulletin board messages boasting of a plan to kidnap a girl after school, a report said on Monday.
The murder of Yuki Yoshida, whose stabbed naked body was found on Friday in bushes in central Ibaraki prefecture, further fuelled public outrage 10 days after a girl of the same age was strangled to death in western Japan.
"I will be promoted from a would-be-criminal to a criminal. I am drawing up a plan to snatch a grade-school girl," said a message on an internet site being probed by police, according to Jiji Press.
"All the preparation has been made. I have studied the school's surroundings. I shall become a criminal!" another message read.
Police declined comment on the reported messages, which Jiji Press said were written early last week.
New safety plans needed
Police have tracked down the alleged killer of the other recently murdered seven-year-old girl. The suspect is Peruvian, leading to calls to tighten rules on foreigners in a country which already strictly controls immigration.
Chief cabinet secretary Shinzo Abe, the government spokesperson, said Japan was looking at new safety plans after the two little girls' murders.
"We must take action to prevent future crimes like these by further cooperating with local communities and individual households," Abe said.
Japan has one of the world's lowest crime rates although it has witnessed a series of grisly attacks on children.
Newspaper delivery man Kaoru Kobayashi pleaded guilty earlier this year to drowning a kidnapped seven-year-old girl in a bathtub and mutilating her body in a crime he documented in photos that he sent by mobile phone to her mother.
His case also involved the internet, with police probing online bulletin board messages on which Kobayashi allegedly described fantasies of torturing a popular children's cartoon character.
- AFP
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