OSAKA -- Osaka Prefectural Police arrested a 28-year-old man on Feb. 3 on suspicion of abandoning a dismembered body found in a mountainous region of the prefecture in January, investigative sources have disclosed.

The suspect was identified as Hiroto Oki, a resident of Osaka's Chuo Ward.

A police officer found the corpse in the mountains of the city of Higashiosaka near the border with Nara Prefecture on Jan. 25. The limbs, head and torso were separated, and some of these parts, including the torso, were left in a 30-meter radius. The victim was reportedly unclothed, and valuables including a phone and wallet were not found nearby.

Based on an autopsy, the man is estimated to have died late in December 2024, and Osaka Prefectural Police believed that someone dismembered his body after that. Following the discovery of the body, police had been investigating the case on suspicion of mutilation and abandonment of a corpse.

(Japanese original by Mizuki Hayashi and Tomoe Saito, Osaka City News Department)