Man reports to police, says he stabbed 'vice minister'+

TOKYO, Nov. 22 Kyodo - A man reported to the Metropolitan Police Department with bloodstained knives Saturday night and said he had ''stabbed a vice minister,'' police said.

The police are questioning the man on suspicion of violating the Swords and
Firearms Control Law and investigating whether he was linked to murder and
stabbing incidents involving former vice health and welfare ministers.
The man, who says his name is Tsuyoshi Koizumi and that he is 46 years old,
went to the police department in the Kasumigaseki district at around 9:35 p.m.
in a minivehicle, which had a license plate indicating it was a rental car, and
was then taken to a police station in Chiyoda Ward for questioning.
The man, who is registered as a resident of Saitama City and is about 165
centimeters in height, had a total of eight survival knives with him when he
turned himself in to the police. Two of the knives had bloodstains. He also
took a pair of sneakers.
In Saitama City, north of Tokyo, on Tuesday morning, Takehiko Yamaguchi, 66,
and his wife Michiko, 61, were found dead with stab wounds to their chests at
their home. They are believed to have been murdered Monday.
Later Tuesday in Tokyo's Nakano Ward, Yasuko Yoshihara, 72, the wife of Kenji
Yoshihara, 76, who was also a vice health and welfare minister, was stabbed by
a man pretending to be from a parcel delivery service at the entrance of their
home. The wife suffered serious wounds while Yoshihara was not at home at the
time.
The Metropolitan Police Department and the Saitama prefectural police are
investigating the incidents as possible serial ''terror'' attacks against
former health and welfare ministry bureaucrats.
The attacks are suspected to be linked to resentment over the country's pension
fiasco which erupted last year, because both Yamaguchi and Yoshihara had served
as heads of the former Health and Welfare Ministry's Pension Bureau and also as
vice health and welfare ministers.
==Kyodo