Tokyo police arrested four men on Sunday on suspicion of murdering a 56-year-old colleague and staging it to look like a suicide on a railway crossing in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward last December.
The suspects were allegedly led by Manabu Sasaki, the 39-year-old president of MA Kensou, a painting company in Tokyo. They allegedly coerced the victim, Osamu Takano, into standing on the tracks where he went on to be fatally struck by a train.
Initially treated as a possible suicide or accident, the case took a turn when authorities traced a suspicious vehicle seen near the crossing to Sasaki and his associates. Police determined that the suspects had regularly subjected Takano to physical abuse and psychological coercion that left him incapable of refusing their orders.
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