Category: Osaka Building Arson

Victims of an arson attack on a psychosomatic clinic in Osaka were remembered on Wednesday, the fourth anniversary of the 2021 incident that killed 26 people including clinic head Kotaro Nishizawa, then 49. In front of the building that housed the clinic, people related to the victims gathered and prayed for them.  Nishizawa’s younger sister, Nobuko, 48, arrived at the building shortly after 9 a.m. She made offerings including tea, lit incense sticks and recited a sutra for some 10 minutes.

Four years after a deadly arson attack on a psychosomatic clinic in the western Japan city of Osaka, the sister of the clinic’s then 49-year-old director is helping rehabilitate inmates, as well as people suffering from drug addiction. Nobuko Nishizawa, 48, whose brother, Kotaro, was among the 26 victims of the Dec. 17, 2021, attack, began meeting with inmates this year.

Public prosecutors on Thursday dismissed a case against the suspect in a fatal arson attack at a mental health clinic in the western Japan city of Osaka last December, as the suspect is already dead.

After the suspect’s death, police sought to uncover the motive for the attack by analyzing his smartphone. But the investigation has now been terminated.

The death toll from an arson attack at a mental health clinic in the western Japan city of Osaka in December last year rose to 26 on Monday, according to the Osaka prefectural police.

“When the police analyzed the smartphone of the deceased suspect, Morio Tanimoto, they found that there were zero entries in the phone book and no call history indicating friendship.”