Student sent to prosecutors for fatally stabbing classmate+

NARA, Japan, July 5 Kyodo -
Police sent a 17-year-old male high school student to prosecutors Sunday on
suspicion of fatally stabbing a classmate a day earlier at a train station in
Sakurai, Nara Prefecture.
The high school senior allegedly stabbed Tomoya Hamada, 18, in the abdomen and
the back with a knife on a station platform at around 8 a.m. Saturday, and the
victim was later pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the police.
The Nara prefectural police searched the suspect's home on Sunday to
substantiate their allegation, after arresting him at the scene of the crime
Saturday.
The student, whose name is withheld as he is a minor, has told the police that
he and Hamada had been on bad terms since around September last year and that
he had wanted to kill him from late June, according to the police.
In March, the school provided guidance to the student after he assaulted Hamada
and explained what had happened to his parents, they said.
The suspect has told the police that he had purchased the knife four or five
days earlier and kept it in his desk drawer at home before taking it with him
in his bag Saturday.
The two students were on their way to school to take an end-of-term exam,
according to the police.
==Kyodo