Eight men were arrested Thursday in Tokyo and face an initial charge of unlawful assembly with weapons, apparently metal bats, in connection with the fatal beating of a 31-year-old restaurateur in September 2012 at a Roppongi nightclub, police said.
The suspects include members of the now-defunct motorcycle gang Kanto Rengo. Metropolitan Police Department investigators plan to question the suspects over the murder of Ryosuke Fujimoto, who was beaten to death with metal bats by 17 masked men at the nightclub, which earlier reports said was named Flower.
The eight men, who are in their 20s and 30s, are technically suspected of gathering with nine other men with metal bats, deemed in this case to be "weapons," near the nightclub in the Roppongi entertainment district early on the morning of Sept. 2. Specific charges of murder apparently have yet to be pressed.