OSAKA -- A 23-year-old unemployed man has been arrested on suspicion of randomly stabbing to death a passerby on a street in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, police said Wednesday.

According to police investigators, Shiro Takagi, from Osaka, stabbed Terushi Omuchi, 58, a company president from Moriguchi, without provocation at around 10:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Omuchi, who was on his way home from work at the time of the attack, died in hospital after being rushed there with multiple chest wounds.

Police arrested Takagi at the scene of the stabbing after he was seized by a 36-year-old company employee who witnessed the incident.

Takagi reportedly told police that he was imitating a recent incident in Kyoto in which a second-grade schoolboy was killed. He said: "I wanted people to listen to what I have to say. I would have stabbed any middle-aged man."

Police said incriminating evidence found near the scene of the crime included eight sheets of paper on which phrases such as: "I am God. I will stand above all things and rule over the heavens. Now is the beginning of justice" had been written.

Omuchi was apparently stabbed five or six times, including in the face, chest and back.

Police believe Takagi left a bicycle near the scene of the crime and attacked Omuchi with a kitchen knife taken from his house. Takagi will undergo a psychiatric examination, police said.

Takagi, who lives alone, enrolled at a private university in Osaka in April 1996 and received an allowance from his parents. He was expelled in May for failing to pay his fees.