A man being treated for burns in a Hiroshima hospital is being viewed as a key suspect in last week's arson attack on a dating club in Kobe's Chuo Ward, according to investigative sources.
The sources said Sunday that the man in question, who is a gangster in a group affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi organized crime syndicate, had been arrested in February 1995 for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail into the home of Hanshin Department Store's president in December 1990.
They added that the physical build and facial features of the man are very similar to eyewitness accounts of the firebombing.
In addition, the location of the man's burns roughly correspond to areas where a suspect whose clothes were on fire after the attack would have been burned, the sources said.