6 Nabbed for Tokyo Arson Possibly Linked to Land Acquisition

Tokyo, Feb. 20 (Jiji Press)--Police have arrested six men in their 20s to 30s, including an apartment management company employee, for allegedly setting fire to a private house and an adjacent vacant apartment building in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward last year, investigative sources said Friday.

The site is located in a densely populated residential area of Koyama in the ward, about 200 meters northeast of Musashi-Koyama Station on Tokyu Corp.'s Meguro Line, where redevelopment is underway.

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department suspects that the motive behind the alleged arson cases was linked to land acquisition.

In addition to the apartment management company worker, Hiroki Naito, 31, the other suspects arrested included Shunta Naoi, 29, of Tokyo's Adachi Ward, and Ryutaro Yamagami, 28, of Kita Ward in Saitama Prefecture, both of whose occupations are unknown.

At around 5:10 a.m. on Oct. 31 last year, two men including Naoi allegedly poured gasoline on a wall of the house of a man in his 60s and set it on fire, as instructed by Naito.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]