The Japanese article is at 
<http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20040831-00000069-mai-soci>
on Yahoo! Japan.  Probably not for long, though.

John W. wrote:
> The teacher supposedly said: '"It was only natural the girl was
> murdered. The killer wasn't wrong. Those around her were wrong."' The
> article says he clarified this by saying "any child would be capable
> of acting the same way."

It seems clear to me that he was talking about the potential, more a "it could 
have happened here".  Maybe not the most constructive way to get kids to think 
about the cause of the incident, but not as malicious as the English article seems.

> If they truly expressed hatred towards the teacher for saying
> that, then perhaps the idiot had a point (that he wasn't capable of
> expressing intelligently).

A sixth grader saying "iya da" is expressing hatred?  Hmm...

> John W.

--Rick