KYOTO -- The suspect in last July's fatal arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio was arrested Wednesday on charges including murdering 36 people and attempted murder of 34 others.
Shinji Aoba, a 42-year-old man from Minuma Ward, Saitama City, has been hospitalized for burns from the incident and continues to receive treatment. Though he does not have the power in his current condition to get out of bed, in the opinion of doctors and other factors he was deemed fit to be questioned by police.
According to police sources, Aoba admitted to the arson, saying in response to questioning, "I thought that if I used gasoline, I could kill a lot of people."
The arrest came 314 days after the attack on the famed anime production company, popularly known as KyoAni, based in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture. The case now moves to elucidating the motives behind the attack.
The Kyoto prefectural police had been looking for the right time to arrest him since the beginning of this year. The police said they were forced to change their plans many times as Aoba's condition was unstable and then there was the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
According to the police, Aoba is suspected of setting fire to KyoAni's No.1 studio in Fushimi Ward, Kyoto, spreading gasoline at the ground-floor entrance around 10:30 a.m. on July 18, and causing about 700 square meters of the three-story studio building to be completely burned, killing 36 company executives and employees. Of the attempted murder of 34 others, 33 were injured while another escaped the attack without harm. One person remains hospitalized.
Aoba was also charged with trespassing the studio grounds and illegally carrying weapons.
The prefectual police made the arrest at 7:18 a.m. in the Kyoto hospital Aoba was in and transferred him to Fushimi Police Station in Fushimi Ward.
Aoba had been receiving treatment at hospitals in Kyoto and Osaka Prefecture after suffering serious burns over his entire body at the crime scene. When the prefectural police questioned him on a voluntary basis in the hospital in November, he was quoted as saying, "I targeted the No. 1 studio where the largest number of people work as I thought I could injure many people."
According to police, on July 15, three days before the incident, Aoba left his apartment in Saitama, came to Kyoto by a Shinkansen bullet train and looked around the company's related facilities, including the studio and its headquarters. During the voluntary questioning, he told investigators, "I set fire as they stole my story," according to police sources.
Among stories or other works submitted through public contests run by KyoAni, there were entries with a name and address that matched Aoba's. However, the company has said there was no plagiarism nor similarity between his works and its productions.
Based on the investigation so far, the prefectural police suspect Aoba arbitrarily held a grudge against the company. But many questions remain about his motives. According to the police, Aoba had been diagnosed with a mental illness in the past and received support from the local government and other entities before the July incident. The Kyoto Public Prosecutors Office is likely to ask the Kyoto District Court to detain Aoba for a psychiatric examination to determine whether he is mentally competent to take criminal responsibility.
After Aoba's arrest in the hospital, he was then taken to a car on a stretcher and transferred to the Fushimi Police Station where the investigation headquarters is located.
Aoba, in a blue gown and wearing a white mask, had burns that looked like sores over wide areas of his arms and face.
While being questioned, he did not act defiantly, but did not offer any apologies to the victims, according to the police.
Aoba was temporarily in critical condition after suffering burns all over his body after the alleged arson attack on July 18. He gradually recovered after having several skin grafts at a hospital in Osaka Prefecture.
Sources said that Aoba's rehabilitation started in September, but he was sometimes reluctant to participate.
"I'm going to get the death penalty, anyway" or "I'm leading a meaningless life," he was quoted as saying by the sources.
When he was transferred to the hospital in Kyoto in November, he remained reluctant to undergo rehabilitation, the sources said.
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