TOKYO: Japanese police have arrested a 73-year-old man suspected of keeping his son in a wooden cage for over 20 years, BBC News reported.
According to officials, Yoshitane Yamasaki claimed that he locked up his son, now 42, because he suffered mental problems and was sometimes violent.
The cage, 1m in height and less than 2m wide, was in a hut next to Yamasaki’s house in the city of Sanda.
The son, who now suffers a bent back, is being looked after by authorities. Local media reports state that he has been in the care of a social welfare facility in western Japan since January.
The discovery was made when a city official visited Yamasaki’s home and alerted the authorities of the 42-year-old man’s confinement.
Investigators believe Yamasaki began confining his mentally ill son from the age of 16 when he began to “act up”.
The police have only arrested the pensioner for caging his son for 36 hours on 18 January, for the time being.
Yamasaki has reportedly admitted the accusation and informed the authorities that he fed his son every day, and allowed him to bathe every other day.
