From Kyodo via Kumamoto Nichi-Nichi Shimbun
September 30 2026
TOKYO – The Supreme Court’s Third Petty Bench, presided over by Justice Kimihiro Ishikane, has ruled against a second retrial petition filed by former employee Satoshi Uematsu, 36, who was sentenced to death for the 2016 killings and wounding of 45 people at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility for people with intellectual disabilities in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture. The decision, dated Sept. 29, dismissed the death-row inmate’s special appeal.
Uematsu had also sought a retrial in 2022, but the petition was rejected, with the rejection becoming final at the Supreme Court in October 2025. Regarding his second petition, the Tokyo High Court ruled in August 2026 that the grounds for the petition were “substantially the same” as those of his first petition, and upheld a Yokohama District Court decision rejecting it.
According to the final judgment, on July 26, 2016, Uematsu killed 19 male and female residents by stabbing them with a bladed weapon and injured 26 people, including staff members, to varying degrees.
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