NAGOYA -- A man died after turning into a fireball after police supplied him with cigarettes and a lighter and his kerosene-soaked clothes exploded into flames while in a police interrogation room here, police said.

The 45-year-old unemployed Nagoya man, whose name was not disclosed, died late Sunday night, about 21 hours after he burst into flames inside an investigation room at the Atsuta Police Station.

A 54-year-old police sergeant who tried to extinguish the fire that claimed the man's life sustained minor burns to his right hand.

Investigators said they are unsure whether the man set himself alight or he burst into flames by accident.

Atsuta Police Station Deputy Chief Michiharu Kondo slammed his officers for giving the man cigarettes and a lighter despite the station's no smoking policy.

"It was wrong not to get him to change his clothes and to have given him permission to have a cigarette in the smoke-free police station," Kondo said.

Police said they received a call from the man's 59-year-old lover at about 8:40 p.m. on Saturday night after the couple had become embroiled in an argument. Six officers were dispatched to the scene and the man walked out onto the road to greet them, carrying an 18-liter jerry can filled with kerosene. He walked about 200 meters along the road, pouring kerosene over his head as he did so on three separate occasions, using about 5 liters of the flammable liquid.

The man held up a cigarette lighter and threatened to set it aflame, so officers grabbed him and bundled him into a patrol car, then escorted him to the Atsuta Police Station at about 11 p.m. Some 15 minutes later, police took turns to question the man in a second floor interrogation room at the station.

Officers asked the man to take a breathalyzer test, but he refused and began demanding he be given a cigarette. A 24-year-old police officer bought him a packet of cigarettes from a vending machine in the station and left the smokes on a table in the interrogation room. Another 24-year-old officer supplied the man with a lighter.

Three more officers went in to question the man about 15 minutes after midnight Sunday and found him sitting cross-legged on the floor of the interrogation room. Flames started spitting out of the right leg of his trousers and when the man stood up, he burst into flames that quickly encompassed his entire body.

Police said the three officers who were questioning the man at the time he burst into flames said they had no idea how he caught fire. There were cigarette butts on the floor, suggesting that a spark may have set him afire, but he may also have set himself ablaze when he tried to light a smoke, police said.

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