Kyoto District Court Sentences Doctor Accused of Euthanizing ALS Patient to 13 Years for Killing Father

February 7 2023

KYOTO – Kyoto District Court on Tuesday sentenced former doctor Naoki Yamamoto, 45, to 13 years in prison for killing his father in 2011, against 20 years sought by the prosecution.

According to the verdict, Yamamoto conspired with his mother, 78, and fellow doctor Yoshikazu Okubo, 44, to kill his father, Yasushi, then 77, by unknown means in a Tokyo apartment in March 2011.

Separately, Yamamoto is facing charges including the murder of a 51-year-old amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient by administering a certain drug at the patient’s request.

At the Kyoto court on Tuesday, Presiding Judge Hiroshi Kawakami said Yamamoto used his experience as a doctor to develop a plan that would not raise suspicion of murder and proactively played a crucial role in killing the father.

The judge noted that there was room for sympathy in light of Yamamoto’s hardships, such as having to take care of the father and pay for the father’s hospitalization. But the judge concluded that his decision to take life so easily deserved strong condemnation.

Yamamoto and Okubo had previously been arrested and charged by the Kyoto District Public Prosecutors Office on Thursday August 13th 2020 for allegedly killing Yuri Hayashi, a woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an intractable disease, at the victim’s request.