TOKYO
(Reuters)
- A Japanese accountant was arrested
Thursday for allegedly
poisoning nine co-workers and himself
last
summer to divert attention from an embezzlement scheme he was
suspected of, police said.
Akihiko Osanai, 43, was arrested on suspicion of spiking water
used to make tea with toxic sodium azide. Osanai was
dismissed from the wood treatment company, Xyence Co, on
suspicion of embezzlement last November, police said.
On August 10, Osanai and the nine other workers at the company's
Niigata branch on the Sea of Japan coast were taken to
hospitals
after they drank poisoned tea and coffee. Police
allege that Osanai poured sodium azide, a chemical used to
inflate
car air bags, into a hot water thermos.
All 10 were later released from hospitals. The incident was one
of a wave of poisoning incidents in Japan last summer.
Police said an audit had been scheduled on the day the poisoning
occurred and Osanai had wanted to divert attention from his
suspected embezzlement.
In the most widely publicized poisoning case, former insurance
saleswoman Masumi Hayashi was arrested in December on
suspicion of pouring arsenic into a curry dish that was served
at a summer festival, killing four people.
The incident occurred last July 25 in the western Japanese city
of Wakayama. Hayashi was taken into police custody last
October.
