Taking Restaurant Manager As Hostage And Threatening Bomb Explosion, This Man Eats Grilled Yakiniku Meat Before Arrested By Police

Illustration of the Japanese Police Special Assault Team (SAT). (Wikimedia Commons/National Police Agency of Japan)

JAKARTA - Police managed to arrest a man who held a restaurant manager hostage, saying he was ready to detonate a bomb that had been set when he felt his life was useless after leaving home.

A 28-year-old man took the manager of a yakiniku grilled meat restaurant hostage in Tokyo, Japan, claiming he had planted a bomb there, then told police he wanted to eat grilled meat, investigative sources said.

The suspect, later identified as Akito Araki, allegedly told his manager he wanted to replicate the recent attack on the train, suggesting he may have drawn inspiration from the October 31 attack on a Keio Line train in Tokyo in which a man stabbed a passenger and ignited a fire.

"I could have carried out (the attack) anywhere, but I wanted to eat grilled meat before I was caught," he was quoted as saying by an investigative source, according to Kyodo News on January 10.

When calling emergency services, the restaurant manager reported he had been given a message by Araki ordering him to call the police, as he had activated the bomb.

No one was injured in the incident which took place on Saturday night at around 8:55 p.m. local time this past week. Meanwhile, the security forces just found fake bombs in a restaurant located in Shibuya Ward.

Only three box objects wrapped in adhesive tape with cell phones were found at the scene. Araki admitted to investigators that he made a fake bomb.

In addition, to investigators working on the matter, Araki said he "couldn't find a reason to live" after leaving his parents' home in Nagasaki Prefecture, southwest Japan, two weeks ago and becoming homeless in Tokyo's Shinjuku District.

To note, Araki is also being investigated for violating gun control laws, after the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department confiscated a butcher knife and fruit knife from him.