At least four of the seven Japanese slain in the recent terrorist attack in Bangladesh died of gunshot wounds, investigative sources said Thursday.
The victims are believed to have died instantly after the attack began last Friday night, the sources said, adding they died as a result of cerebral damage and other causes.
Of the seven, the bodies of five showed they had been shot.
The seven were among the 20 hostages, including nine Italians and one person each from the United States and India, killed after heavily armed Islamist militants attacked an upscale restaurant in Dhaka frequented by expatriates.
Police are waiting for Tamaoki Watanabe, the sole Japanese survivor of the attack, to recover before interviewing him to find out more about the circumstances of the attack.
Watanabe, 46, was among the 13 people rescued when Bangladeshi police stormed the restaurant. He is back in Japan and recovering from a gunshot wound.
Apart from cerebral damage, loss of blood was also cited in postmortems on the victims among the reasons for their deaths. Some of the bodies had deep cuts, while others had both cuts and gunshot wounds. Their estimated times of death are unknown.
Bangladeshi authorities have said most of victims were killed execution-style with sharp weapons before the operation to clear the terrorists was launched at dawn Saturday.
The autopsies were performed after the bodies of the seven victims were flown back to Japan aboard a government plane on Tuesday.