WASHINGTON - The United States said on Tuesday (July 26) that a stabbing rampage in a care facility for disabled in Japan was "repugnant and senseless".
"There is never any excuse for such violence, but the fact that this attack occurred at a facility for persons with disabilities makes it all the more repugnant and senseless," said Mr Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council.
"The thoughts of the American people are with our Japanese friends as they mourn the lives lost," he said in a statement.
A 26-year-old former employee went on a stabbing rampage at the facility early Tuesday in Kanagawa prefecture, killing at least 19 people and injuring 25 people. Twenty of those wounded were in serious condition, according to Japanese media.
The suspect, identified as Satoshi Uematsu, is said to have turned himself in to the police at about 3am local time (2am Singapore time). This was half an hour after staff at the Tsukui Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) called the police, at 2.30am.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that the police had not obtained any information to suggest there was a link between the attack and Islamist extremism.
