TOKYO (Reuters) -- A Japanese man alleged to have abducted a schoolgirl and hidden her in his room for almost a decade in the home he shared with his mother was arrested on Friday, police said.
Nobuyuki Sato, 37, was charged with battery and abducting a minor, police said. Fusako Sano, then a 9-year-old schoolgirl, was seized and forced to spend half of her life in squalid conditions, they said.Sato struck fear into the girl, now a 19-year-old woman, with beatings and verbal lashings, they added.
Sato had been undergoing psychological tests since he was taken into custody on Jan. 28 when police apprehended him at a hospital in his hometown of Kashiwazaki.
He took the woman out of his room for the first time on that day and hospital staff called police to the scene after the man threatened hospital staff as he launched into a tirade.
The woman told police she did not try to flee because she "feared for her life."
Police sources said they suspect Sato's mother, now 73, had some inkling that the woman was being kept captive but was afraid of her son and his violent outbursts.