Japan knife attacker grins before cameras

Tokyo, July 27 

A Japanese man who admitted to murdering 19 people at a centre for the mentally disabled grinned to news cameras today before being questioned over the country's worst killing spree in decades.

The 26-year-old reportedly said he wanted all disabled people to ‘disappear’ after the knife rampage that left his victims in pools of blood, including some who were stabbed in the neck.

With a blue jacket draped over his head, Satoshi Uematsu was escorted out of a police station into a waiting van before a crowd of flashing news cameras.

Inside the vehicle with the jacket removed, he smiled broadly in footage broadcast on morning news shows.

Uematsu is accused of breaking into the Tsukui Yamayuri-en care centre in the forested hills of Sagamihara city, outside of Tokyo, in the early hours of yesterday.

He reportedly tied up two caregivers before stabbing residents. He quickly turned himself in at a police station, carrying bloodied knives and admitting to officers: “I did it”. — AFP