IBARAKI (TR) – Ibaraki Prefectural Police have re-arrested a 50-year-old woman on suspicion of coercion after she allegedly intimidated her female roommate into sewing her own lips together, reports Jiji Press (July 24).
Masae Sakurai, a self-described part-time worker, is accused of threatening the 42-year-old victim at their shared residence in Koga City on the night of June 18.
According to the Koga Police Station, Sakurai is suspected of sewing a woman’s lips shut at their home on June 29 — causing injuries of undetermined severity — after having forced her to sew them herself about ten days prior.
In the latter allegations, Sakurai presented the woman with a threaded needle and demanded, “Come on, hurry up and do it.” Terrified, the victim was forced to stitch her own upper and lower lips together multiple times.
Sakurai had previously been arrested on suspicion of assault causing injury. Upon her re-arrest on July 24, she flatly denied the allegations, telling investigators, “I deny it.”
The two met through a mutual acquaintance over a decade ago. The woman began visiting Sakurai’s home around 2021 and moved in with him in April 2025, a move prompted by the lending and borrowing of money.
The day after the lip-sewing ordeal, the victim managed to slip away when Sakurai’s guard was down and fled to a nearby store for help.
“I was too scared to run away,” the victim told investigators.
Police are continuing to investigate the living situation, suspecting that Sakurai had placed the younger woman under severe psychological control to keep her subjugated.
