A 62-year-old Tokyo man has been arrested on suspicion of making more than 1,200 nuisance calls to the police emergency number over a four-month period, the Metropolitan Police Department said Monday.
Hideyuki Iizuka, president of a real estate company, made the calls from his house in Katsushika Ward on 1,254 occasions from April 1 to July 24, police said.
Iizuka told responding telephone operators such things as "Japan must engage in warfare with the United States. Mobilize tanks" and "I will destroy Yasukuni Shrine," according to the MPD.
The MPD, which operates the emergency dial 110 call service, filed a complaint on Iizuka with the Kameari Police Station in Katsushika Ward in August, they said.
MPD officials said the emergency call center handled 1.36 million calls from January to September, of which 200,000 were nuisance calls.
Aside from malicious calls, senseless inquiries, such as asking for the telephone number for emergency calls, had been handled by the 30 lines connected to the emergency call center, the officials said.