A police officer who claimed he had been stabbed by an unknown assailant at his home has admitted that he did it himself because he didn’t want to go to work, Ishikawa police said on Saturday.

Police plan to punish assistant inspector Tomoyuki Mukaide, 44, and investigate the case as a false report.

Mukaide was appointed a senior officer in charge of responding to natural disasters in March. He handled the security of local areas after a major earthquake hit Ishikawa Prefecture on March 25.

“I couldn’t get accustomed to the job. I became so fatigued I didn’t want to go to work,” Mukaide was quoted as saying.

Mukaide allegedly stabbed himself in the stomach with a knife on May 23. A colleague visited Mukaide’s apartment in Kanazawa after he failed to show up for work. The colleague found Mukaide lying with a knife stuck in his stomach.

“The doorbell rang so I opened the door and a man I didn’t know stabbed me,” he reportedly told officers on that day.

Mukaide admitted he staged the stabbing after he was released from hospital on May 31.

(每日新闻)