A Japanese court on Thursday sentenced the arsonist behind the Kyoto Anime fire that killed 36 people to death.
The suspect was identified as 45-year-old Shinji Aoba who is responsible for setting fire to the Kyoto Animation studio in 2019. It was considered to be the worst mass killing in the Asian country in the last 20 years.
Kyoto Anime Fire Arsonist Sentenced to Death
Authorities charged Shinji with murder and arson after he told police that his work had been plagiarized and that he used gasoline to start a fire in the studio. On Thursday, the Kyoto District Court found him guilty of the charges filed against him.
At the time of the blaze, there were dozens of people inside the three-story building as the fire spread quickly and left no time for the victims to escape. Authorities said at the time that those who died were employees.
The judge who handled the case is Keisuke Masuda, who called Aoba's crime "truly atrocious and inhumane." In his ruling, he added that the victims' deaths were "too serious and tragic" and described how the flames and smoke engulfed the studio, as per CNN.
During a news conference in 2019, law enforcement authorities said that Shinji had unspecified mental health issues. The defendant pleaded not guilty during his trial, which started in September last year.
Shinji's defense lawyers argued that he had a mental disorder and could not be held criminally responsible for the deaths of the victims. However, prosecutors called for the death penalty, arguing that the suspect was fully competent when he committed the act.
Only Japan and a few parts of the United States retain capital punishment among industrialized democracies. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, said that international law prohibits using the death penalty against people who have mental disabilities.
Inside the courtroom were the families of the victims and some could be seen wiping away tears as the judge read out the details of Shinji's crime. The defendant was also seen keeping his head bowed as Masuda read out the death penalty sentence against him, according to BBC.
The Killing of 36 People
The KyoAni studio in Kyoto is a beloved institution and is known for producing films and graphic novels that are critically well-regarded by fans. These include K-On! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
In a previous statement in court, Shinji said that he did not think that so many people would die because of him setting fire to the studio. Prosecutors on the other hand said that the severity of the crimes demanded the heaviest sentence possible.
They added that the crime was an unprecedented case of arson and mass murder and noted that the number of victims was so far the largest in the history of Japanese criminal trials. The death penalty against Shinji comes as there are currently 107 people on death row in Japan.
Despite this, the Asian nation carried out no executions last year and international human rights groups have repeatedly called for the end of capital punishment in Japan. However, a government poll in 2020 showed that 80% of the country's population favored retaining it, said the Washington Post.
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