A Tokyo police officer was sent to Dalian, China, on Sunday to observe an interrogation of a 66-year-old Japanese man about an unsolved 1995 murder-robbery in a Tokyo supermarket, the Metropolitan Police Department said.
The interrogation will be conducted by Chinese authorities in the presence of the MPD investigator, officials said.
The man, who has been sentenced to death in China for dealing illegal drugs, is also wanted by the Aichi Prefectural Police for robbery and other criminal cases.
Before he was taken into custody in China, he allegedly told an acquaintance that it was another acquaintance who committed the high-profile crime in the supermarket in Hachioji, in which three women were shot to death, investigative sources said.
According to the sources, the man was responsible for a series of robberies by a group of Japanese and Chinese targeting wealthy residences.
His death sentence was finalized in an August 2007 ruling by a Chinese high court for allegedly buying amphetamines from a Chinese in Dalian in June 2003 and handing over the drugs to five people, including a Japanese, the following month.