Police on Monday arrested another man in a case involving two burnt bodies found at a riverside north of Tokyo, with investigators suspecting he may have issued instructions to a man already apprehended in connection with the incident.
Hikaru Sasaki, 28, was tracked down in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa, where he appears to have been hiding for several days. He had an airline ticket bound for a different location.
Investigators approached him at Naha Airport on Sunday afternoon for voluntary questioning, arresting him at a police station in the prefecture the following day before bringing him to Tokyo.
Sasaki, along with the other arrested man, 25-year-old Ryoken Hirayama, are suspected of involvement in the torching of the bodies of Ryutaro Takarajima, 55, who ran several eateries in Tokyo's Taito Ward, and his wife Sachiko, 56, on April 16.
Investigators have not said whether Sasaki has admitted to the allegation or not. Multiple others are believed to have been involved in the case, and police are searching for the whereabouts of two individuals thought to have carried out the murder.
According to investigative sources, Hirayama, who was arrested on April 21 after he turned himself in to police, said "an acquaintance" had asked him to "deal with corpses" and instructed him to buy items including tape and gasoline. Hirayama has also said he was paid for the work.
Hirayama has denied involvement in the murder and said he only lent his car to the two individuals police suspect committed the actual murder.
Investigators believe the unnamed acquaintance to be Sasaki, with security camera footage recorded in Tokyo in the early hours of April 16 showing the two met.
Police suspect the two individuals who committed the murder borrowed Hirayama's car on the night of April 15 and took it to an empty residence in the capital, where they are believed to have met the victims at around midnight.
The burned corpses were spotted on the morning of April 16 in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, by a passerby. They were found with their hands and feet bound and their heads covered with plastic bags and adhesive tape.
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