Is the 21-year-old man who killed two children in 1997 when he was 14 truly "rehabilitated," as stated by the Justice Ministry?
While doubt still lingers among the relatives of the victims murdered by the man, who was released on parole from a medical reformatory last week, sources who watched him during the rehabilitation process testify he gradually changed until he finally came to pledge that he would "continue to atone" for his crimes all his life.
When he was admitted to the Kanto Medical Juvenile Reformatory in fall 1997, he told people around him that the real world consists of "fighting and destruction" and that "the strong are allowed to kill the weak," the sources said.
At that time, he was diagnosed as suffering from "sexual sadism" in which he felt sexual excitement only by imagining violent scenes.