A 29-year-old taxi driver from Tokyo's Setagaya Ward was arrested Thursday on suspicion of assembling an explosive and attempting to mail it to a rival in a love triangle, police said.
Fujio Izumi, who was arrested after being released from a hospital after being treated for burns when the explosive went off accidentally, allegedly claimed he made the bomb based on a manual on "ways to retaliate."
He suffered serious burns when the bomb accidentally went off while he was trying to package it for delivery at around 5 p.m. on Dec. 26 at his apartment in Okusawa, Setagaya Ward, police said. He was arrested Thursday for alleged violation of the Explosives Control Law upon his release from the hospital.
Police have confiscated about 80 items, including water pipes and firecrackers, that were believed used to make the bomb, they said. "I wanted to vent my anger," police quoted him as saying.
Izumi had been vying for the affections of a 35-year-old Tokyo woman he had met in June 1995. The woman had been dating a man from Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, whom Izumi began threatening in 1997 by appearing at his workplace and threatening him with a knife, police said.