Bereaved relatives and others mourned on Sunday victims of an arson attack at a clinic in a multitenant building in the western Japan city of Osaka two years ago.
In front of the building, mourners laid flowers and offered prayers for the victims.
Prosecutors on Thursday demanded capital punishment for a man who has admitted to the 2019 arson attack at Kyoto Animation Co. that killed 36 people, while his defense counsel has called for an acquittal, arguing he was not mentally competent at the time.
A prosecutor asked the accused to elaborate on a previous comment in which he said he did not expect so many people would die and he went too far. The accused said his comment includes feelings of atonement and he is extremely sorry.
It is the first time for the accused to offer an apology in court.
The allegations the nine face include professional negligence resulting in the death of the 43-year-old man who was being held in a cell at the Okazaki police station in Aichi Prefecture. The man was battling schizophrenia and diabetes and died of kidney failure but is suspected of not receiving adequate medical care.
A woman who was reported to have been attacked with a knife at a music hall near Tokyo on Thursday has admitted that she stabbed herself, police said.
A Japanese court started on Monday hearings to determine a sentence for a man accused of the July 2019 arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio, which killed more than 30 people.
The report said investigations could not confirm if the woman was bullied or harassed. But it said the possibility that she had suffered severe mental stress cannot be denied as she had been subject to excessively long work hours and instructions from senior performers.
Public prosecutors on Monday reiterated that a man accused of conducting an arson attack on a Kyoto Animation Co. studio in 2019 was competent to be held fully responsible for the incident that left 36 people dead and 32 others injured. The prosecutors said that the crime could be attributed to Aoba’s personality and that it was not possible to say that he had a limited capability to take responsibility.
Takayuki Okada, professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University’s Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, testified at the 14th hearing in the trial of defendant Shinji Aoba, 45, at Kyoto District Court. As requested by the defense, Okada has conducted the second psychiatric evaluation on Aoba, after he was indicted.
A man accused of carrying out a deadly arson attack at a Kyoto Animation Co. studio in 2019 had paranoid personality disorder, but the disorder had almost no influence in the attack, a psychiatrist said Monday.
Barrier Free Japan