'Japanese cannibal' Sagawa dies of pneumonia
- 04 Dec 2022
Issei Sagawa speaks to media. File
Gulf Today Report
Issei Sagawa, known as the "Japanese cannibal", died at the age of 73, more than 40 years of crimes. Sagawa killed a Dutch student in Paris and then ate parts of her corpse, which sparked terror, and he turned into a media phenomenon in his country.
Sagawa passed away on Nov.24, 2022 as a result of pneumonia, and an informal funeral was held for him in the presence of his relatives only, according to what his brother Jun said in a statement.
Sagawa was a student at the Sorbonne University in Paris when, on June 11, 1981, he invited his Dutch colleague, Rene Hartevelt, to dinner at his home, where he shot and cut her body before eating several parts of it over a period of three days.
The worst thing is that he took a lot of pictures of his horrific crime, and then tried to get rid of the remains of the body, so he put its parts inside two bags and left them in the Bois de Boulogne park, but the police found them and arrested him.
Upon interrogation, Sagawa confessed to the crime, saying, "Eating this girl was an expression of love. I wanted to feel inside me the presence of someone I loved."
After that, specialised experts affirmed that he was suffering from a mental disorder, so he evaded trial and was admitted to a psychiatric centre in France and then in another centre in Japan before he was released in August 1985.
He became a star in the media, as he used to receive many journalists in his apartment in the suburbs of Tokyo. He also had an interview to a Japanese channel and published several books which recorded high sales figures, including books entitled "Cannibal" "I Want to Be Eaten", in addition to a graphic story in which he recounted the details of his crime.