Japanese Internet-Assisted Suicide

A Japanese man has been arrested for aiding the suicide of a young woman who contacted him via his suicide web site.

It’s a gruesome statistic, but Japan has the highest suicide levels in the world. Last year, once again, over 30,000 Japanese killed themselves. But in what might be a first, a young Japanese woman turned to the Internet to find help with her suicide.   According to the Associated Press, in April Sayaka Nishizawa, 21, contacted 33 year-old electrician Kazunari Saito, who ran a web site through the Internet suicide site that he ran and paid him $1700 to help her kill himself.   Although her death was initially deemed to be suicide after her body was found by her father on April 16, police became suspicious after noticing that her keys and cell phone were missing.   Saito was evidently tracked after police investigated e-mails on her computer. The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri reported that Nishizawa contacted Saito, asking,   "I want to die, how can I die?"

He wrote back: "I will give you lots of sleeping pills. I will help."   According to reports he was arrested last Wednesday and charged with giving Nishizawa sleeping pills then suffocating her. But the Kyodo News Agency said he was first arrested in July and charged with supplying sleeping pills to 10 people, one of whom had died.