SAGA (Kyodo) A 24-year-old man was arrested Saturday on suspicion of murdering the owner of a video game shop in Kohoku, Saga Prefecture, in 1997 when he was 15.
The man is suspected of stabbing Masazumi Hirotaki, 38, in a parking lot of the apartment building in which the shop was located in the early hours of Aug. 28, 1997.
The name of the suspect is being withheld because he was a minor when the crime was committed. Police refrained from saying whether he has admitted to the allegations, citing the possibility of "adversely affecting the investigation."
According to police, the man was part of a group who broke a window in the back of the game store with the intention of robbing the place. A security alarm went off, and the man tried to flee on a bicycle.
A resident of the apartment building caught the man and handed him over to Hirose, who then called police.
Hirose was stabbed after making the call. Police officers who arrived some 10 minutes later found him on the ground bleeding from the wounds.
The police said they questioned the man on several occasions after the crime and that they decided to arrest him based on a comprehensive judgment of physical evidence and witness accounts. They also questioned others suspected of being involved in the attempt to break into the shop, but believe that only the man arrested Saturday was involved in the stabbing.
The man, who is unemployed, is from the neighboring city of Ogi.