Police early Thursday arrested a 42-year-old man who allegedly confined a woman in his apartment in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, for five months and beat and starved her.
Takuya Muramoto is suspected of confining the woman, a company employee in her 20s, between February and July, police said. He has flatly denied the allegations, they added, without naming the victim, who met the suspect at a matchmaking party last year.
Investigators have also learned that the woman sent an e-mail to a coworker saying she "cannot escape" in early February when the confinement began.