Suspect in ex-bureaucrat assaults plotted to kill 10 more people

TOKYO, Nov. 24 Kyodo - A 46-year-old man suspected of involvement in two attacks apparently targeting former vice health and welfare ministers has told investigators he plotted to murder 10 more people -- former top bureaucrats at the health ministry and their family members -- and named several persons, investigative sources said
Monday.

Takeshi Koizumi, unemployed, has also said he held a ''grudge'' against former
health ministry officials, and that he obtained the home addresses of the two
former officials at a library.
''I decided when I was in college that I must attack senior health ministry
officials. I had a grudge against them,'' Koizumi was quoted as telling the
investigators.
The sources also said Koizumi had a total of 10 knives, including a
bloodstained one believed to have been used in the attacks, in the rental car
he drove to the Metropolitan Police Department when he turned himself in.
There were also two boxes, each attached with delivery slips, in the car. One
box was carrying a slip with the name of Kenji Yoshihara, one of the two former
officials targeted in the attacks, and another was addressed to a third former
vice health and welfare minister, the sources said.
Police believe Koizumi also planned to murder the third former official on
visiting his home and pretending to deliver a parcel. The suspect told
investigators he gave up on the third attack because the police had enhanced
security for former health ministry officials following the two attacks, the
sources said.
The MPD on Monday sent Koizumi to prosecutors on suspicion of a sword and
firearms control law violation. The police have yet to serve an arrest warrant
on Koizumi in connection with the murders of a former vice minister and his
wife or the assault on the wife of another former vice minister.
Koizumi, shortly before turning himself in to the MPD in central Tokyo on
Saturday night, apparently sent an identical e-mail message to several media
outlets which read, ''The uprising this time is not a pension terror attack''
but it is ''revenge for the killing by a public health center of my family
member 34 years ago.''
The ''family member'' apparently refers to a dog Koizumi's family kept when he
was in elementary school. He also told the investigators he was ''hacked off
because my pet was killed by a public health center in the past,'' according to
the police.
Because of the leap in logic in his stated motive for murdering a former vice
health and welfare minister, the MPD is analyzing a laptop computer confiscated
from his home Sunday for clues to the motive, the sources said.
Koizumi has admitted to his involvement in the murders of Takehiko Yamaguchi,
66, former vice health and welfare minister, and his wife Michiko, 61, as well
as his involvement in the assault on Yasuko Yoshihara, 72, the wife of Kenji
Yoshihara, 76, who also served in the post.
Investigators have looked into the possibility that discontent over pensions
could be behind the high-profile cases, as both former vice ministers were
involved in Japan's pension policy.
Despite Koizumi's arrest early Sunday, the government will continue
strengthening security for the health and welfare ministry building and the
homes of current and former senior ministry officials, government sources said
Monday.
According to Koizumi's father in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the family briefly kept
a stray dog when his son was in elementary school, but the father, without
obtaining his son's consent, eventually took the dog to a pubic health center
to be put down because it barked too noisily.
Public health centers are run by prefectural and municipal governments and are
not managed by the health and welfare ministry.