Category: Crime

Crime Disability Discrimination Japan

Documentary ‘On The Way Home’ alleges prejudice by police towards people with intellectual disabilities in Japan

At approximately 6PM on September 25th, 2007, 25-year-old Kenta Yasunaga was cycling home from a workshop he regularly attended in Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan, when police officers attempted to stop him, believing him to be acting suspiciously. However, Kenta Yasunaga had difficulties in communicating due to his autism. Five officers seized him as he fiercely resisted and moaned in distress. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and he soon fell unconscious. Kenta Yasunaga would later die at the hospital to which he was taken and his cause of death was found to be acute cardiac arrest.

Crime Disability Japan

Nagoya disability support facility employee allegedly stole ATM card from male client, withdrawing 1.3 million yen

A staff member at an employment support facility for people with disabilities in Nagoya was arrested on suspicion of theft and other offences for stealing the cash card of a male user of the facility, handing it to another user of the facility, and forced him to withdraw approximately 1.3 million yen in cash from an ATM.

Assisted Dying Crime Japan

“I didn’t kill my husband” Mother of ALS patient contract killer and former doctor pleads not guilty

On 13th February, the Kyoto District Court held the first trial of Junko Yamamoto’s mother, 78, who was accused of conspiring with her son, former doctor Naoki Yamamoto, 45, and others to kill her husband in 2011, a crime for which he received 13 years in prison. Junko said: ‘I did not kill my husband and I did not conspire with him. I am not guilty” and denied the indictment.