Japanese court sentences ‘Joker’ to 23 years for stabbing passenger

A Japanese court sentenced a man to 23 years in prison on Monday for stabbing a passenger and setting a fire on a Tokyo express train while dressed in a Joker costume on Halloween two years ago, officials said. T
he Tachikawa branch of Tokyo District Court found Kyota Hattori, 26, guilty of attempted murder for stabbing and seriously injuring a male passenger in his 70s and of spraying lighter fluid in the train car and then lighting it to try to kill others.
Twelve people were injured by the fire, most of them not seriously.
During the trial, Hattori told the court he was so shocked when he learned that his girlfriend had married someone else only six months after they broke up that he decided to carry out the attack so he could end his life by receiving the death penalty,.
In the ruling, Judge Yu Takeshita said the attack was an “indiscriminate crime with a selfish motive that targeted many passengers who happened to be on the train.”