A former Self-Defense Forces member accused of killing a police officer in 2018 in central Japan and then shooting dead a security guard at a nearby school with the officer's gun did not originally plan to take the weapon, his defense team argued Thursday in court.
Keita Shimazu, 24, who was a part-time restaurant worker at the time of the attack, is facing a charge of murder-robbery in connection with the stabbing of Kenichi Inaizumi, 46, at a police box in the city of Toyama, and the theft of his handgun on June 26, 2018.
"His intention to steal the handgun arose after the killing," one of his lawyers said at the first hearing of Shimazu's trial, arguing that he should face separate murder and theft charges instead over the assault on the officer, who was chief of the police box.