Japan wife 'beat husband to death' over 40-year-old fling

The couple lived together with their daughter, 43, who was out at the time of the alleged attack.

TOKYO: A 79-year-old Japanese housewife who allegedly clubbed her husband to death in a row over an affair he had four decades ago has been arrested, police and press reports said Wednesday.

Yoshiko Suzuki used a "stick-like object" when she attacked her husband Masaharu, also 79, at their home Sunday night in the town of Nakai, some 60 kilometres west of Tokyo, a regional police spokesman said.

"My husband lost his job about 40 years ago because of an affair with a woman. We have often quarrelled over this matter," the suspect told investigators, according to media reports.

Police intervened in one of these quarrels in September last year, TV Asahi said.

The couple lived together with their daughter, 43, who was out shopping at the time of the alleged attack, reports said.

Suzuki was arrested on charges of assault resulting in death on Monday and handed over to public prosecutors in Kanagawa prefecture on Tuesday, the police spokesman told AFP.

In August last year, a Japanese woman battered her 70-year-old husband to death with a coffee cup after discovering he was cheating on her.