TOKYO — A court in Japan on Monday sentenced to dying a gentleman who fatally stabbed 19 folks in 2016 at a heart for the disabled, 1 of the worst mass murders in the country’s record.
The killer, Satoshi Uematsu, 30, had instructed the court in Yokohama that he had carried out the assault in an hard work to rid Japan of men and women with mental and physical handicaps, telling officials he had been motivated by Hitler, in accordance to news experiences.
The rampage profoundly stunned Japan, wherever violent crime is rather mysterious, and it provided a searing reminder of the deep stigma attached to disabilities in Japanese culture.
Mr. Uematsu had spent a long time working at the suburban Tokyo heart the place he carried out the assault, but experienced left quite a few months beforehand. He had been briefly fully commited to a healthcare facility by the local authorities after trying to give a politician a letter threatening to get rid of hundreds of disabled persons “for the sake of Japan.”
After the assault, he turned himself in to the law enforcement.
Speaking at the sentencing hearing on Monday, a choose described Mr. Uematsu’s steps as “so grave it is difficult to look at them to earlier conditions,” introducing that they “can be met with almost nothing but the death penalty,” the countrywide broadcaster, NHK, documented.
As the family members of victims seemed on, the choose refused a ask for from Mr. Uematsu to make a statement, NHK said. As of Monday, his legal professionals experienced not filed an charm, the broadcaster extra.
The trial was 1 of the couple legal conditions in Japan to be conducted in entrance of a jury — the system is reserved for serious crimes, including those people qualified for the demise penalty.
Mr. Uematsu’s protection staff had tried using to persuade jurors that their client’s mental state did not make it possible for him to comprehend the seriousness of his steps.
But the judge and jurors concluded that Mr. Uematsu bore full duty for the attack.
Talking at a news meeting soon after the announcement of the sentence, Takashi Ono, whose son was among the much more than two dozen persons wounded through the assault, mentioned that he was relieved by the verdict.
“This was the final result that the bereaved and the families of people wounded experienced hoped for,” he told reporters.
Japan is a person of a dwindling variety of produced nations to retain the death penalty, with general public guidance for the observe remaining higher. The country carries out a modest amount of executions every 12 months.
Makiko Inoue contributed reporting.