Vietnamese man accused of stabbing compatriot in Japan

Citing local police, the TBS News reported Tuesday that Nguyen Do Nhat allegedly slashed the head and an arm of an unnamed 19-year-old Vietnamese acquaintance with a knife in a building in the Namiki area of Kawaguchi City last Thursday.

Emergency services received a call from a witness saying "a foreign man soaked in blood screaming about a burglar."

The victim was transported to the hospital and found to carry no life-threatening injuries.

Nhat was arrested after he arrived at a police station in the Suginami Ward of Tokyo, saying he had "lost some property."

He has denied all allegations about stabbing a compatriot, police said. More information about the case has not been released.

An investigation is ongoing.

The number of non-permanent residents from Vietnam in Japan grew more than six-fold from 2008 to 2017, when it reached about 260,000. Vietnam has surpassed Brazil to become the fourth biggest minority group in Japan, according to Japan’s National Police Agency.

But the reputation of Vietnamese people living in Japan has also been tarnished following a 2017 Japanese police report that said they committed more crimes than any other foreign non-permanent residents in the country.

Police recorded 5,140 crimes committed by Vietnamese people in 2017, up from 3,177 the year earlier, accounting for 30.2 percent of the total number of crimes committed by foreign nationals.