The Tokitsukaze stable hazing scandal occurred in Japan on June 26, 2007, when Takashi Saito (斉藤 俊, Saitō Takashi), a seventeen-year-old junior sumo wrestler who fought under the shikona of Tokitaizan Takashi, collapsed and died after a training session at Tokitsukaze stable's lodgings in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
It emerged that he was beaten with a beer bottle and a metal baseball bat at the direction of his trainer.
[1] Saito's cause of death had been reported as heart failure, but his father insisted on an autopsy, which revealed the abuse.
[1] Partly as a result of the Saito case, the Diet of Japan drafted a law promoting cause-of-death investigations, which was enacted in 2012.
[3] A separate law in 2013 gave discretion to local police chiefs to allow autopsies even in cases where there were apparently few signs of foul play.