Japan on Tuesday hanged a man convicted of stabbing to death eight elementary school children in a rampage that shocked the nation and severely shook its sense of security, media said.

Mamoru Takuma, 40, was executed less than a year after his death sentence was finalized for the 2001 attack at a school in western Japan.

Takuma, an unemployed man who had previously received treatment for mental illness, pleaded guilty to the killings and to injuring 13 other children and two teachers at Ikeda elementary school near Osaka. He was sentenced to death in August 2003, with his sentence finalized a month later.

Seven girls and a boy were killed in June 2001 when he burst into a classroom and began slashing at random with a long knife. One of the dead children was aged six and the rest were seven-year-olds.

Takuma, who at one point told a court hearing he wanted to pay for the crime with his life, had withdrawn an appeal filed by defense lawyers.

Source: Agencies