OSAKA: The man suspected of starting Friday’s fatal fire at a clinic in the western Japan city of Osaka quit his job as a sheet metal worker suddenly about 10 years ago.

Morio Tanimoto, 61, whom police identified as the suspect Sunday before obtaining an arrest warrant, was a highly skilled sheet metal worker at a factory in Osaka.

He had a wife and two children but divorced. He is believed to have been living alone recently in a three-story house in the city about 3.5 kilometers from the building that housed the mental health clinic.

Tanimoto started working at the factory in the same city about 20 years ago as a part-timer after responding to a help-wanted advertisement, according to the 78-year-old president of the factory.

As he had strong skills and experience, he soon became a regular employee. He engaged in roof repair and other work.

About seven years later, he left the factory, saying he had something he wanted do. But he came back about a year later.

“He has a serious personality and a strong sense of responsibility,” the president said. “He was an excellent metal worker. His products had outstandingly beautiful finishes.”

Although Tanimoto did not cause a major problem in the workplace, he started having unexcused absence from work around the time of his divorce.

He wanted to reconcile with his former wife, but it did not happen. He suddenly quit the factory around 2010, and there had been no contact since then, according the president.

The fire that killed 24 people is being investigated by the Osaka police as a case of murder and arson. Tanimoto, a patient of the clinic, was hospitalized with severe respiratory tract burns.

Tanimoto’s older brother was shocked at the incident. “I hope he will recover and atone for his crimes,” the brother said in tears.

According to the brother, Tanimoto, is the second son of four siblings, and the third child. From around his junior high school days, he started helping a sheet metal factory run by his father.

A turning point in his life came around the age of 18 or 19, when his mother died. Around that time, he started avoiding his father and other family members, according to the brother.

Having been estranged from Tanimoto for more than 30 years, the elder brother said he did not know where his younger brother was or what he was doing.

“I was surprised” to learn that my younger brother is the suspect in the attack, he said.

“It’s a little hard to accept it,” he said, adding his younger brother is not the kind of person who can do such an extreme thing. “I guess something happened to him.”

While praying for the souls of the 24 victims, the elder brother said he wants to tell his younger brother not to die. “I hope he will recover, face up to the incident and atone for his crimes.”

JIJI Press