Police have arrested five people over an incident in which a man was found dead last December in a suitcase in the Tama River, including a former girlfriend of the victim, investigative sources said Sunday.
The former girlfriend, 32-year-old Mai Nishitaka, and four others including her family members were arrested by Kanagawa Prefectural Police for allegedly abandoning the body, found in the river in the city of Kawasaki.
The man, Tadayuki Hara, then 46, is believed to have been strangled to death, and the prefectural police are investigating the circumstances leading up to the incident.