Attacker grins before cameras

A Japanese man who admitted murdering 19 people at a center for the mentally disabled grinned at news cameras on Wednesday before being questioned over the country's worst killing spree in decades.

Police searched the home of the 26-year-old, who reportedly said he wanted all disabled people to "disappear", after the knife rampage that left his victims in pools of blood, including some who were stabbed in the neck.

With a blue jacket draped over his head, Satoshi Uematsu was escorted out of a police station into a waiting van before a crowd of flashing cameras.