A Japanese court on Thursday (25) sentenced a 45-year-old man to death for setting fire to the renowned Kyoto Animation studio in 2019, which left 36 people dead in the country's worst mass murder in almost 20 years, according to the public broadcaster. NHK.
The defendant, Shinji Aoba, was charged with murder and arson after telling police that his work had been plagiarized and that he used gasoline to set fire to the studio. He was found guilty by the Kyoto District Court on Thursday.
Dozens of people were inside the three-story building at the time of the fire, which spread so quickly that many did not have time to escape, police said at the time. All those who died were employees, with at least 32 others injured.
In his ruling, the court's presiding judge, Keisuke Masuda, called Aoba's crime “truly atrocious and inhumane.” The victims' deaths were “very serious and tragic,” Masuda said, describing how flames and smoke engulfed the studio.
“The horror and pain of the victims who died in Studio 1, which turned into hell in an instant, or who died afterwards, are indescribable,” said the judge.
At a news conference in 2019, police said Aoba had unspecified mental health issues.
He pleaded not guilty at the trial, which began last September, and his defense lawyers argued that he had a mental disorder and could not be held criminally responsible.
Prosecutors, however, sought the death penalty, arguing that Aoba was fully competent.
Among industrialized democracies, only Japan and parts of the United States maintain capital punishment. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say international law prohibits the use of the death penalty against people with mental disabilities.
On Thursday, the judge ruled that Aoba could determine right and wrong at the time of the incident, according to NHK. Her capacity for responsibility was “determined to be neither insane nor mentally incompetent at the time of the crime,” NHK reported.
The fire marked the worst mass killing in Japan since the 2001 arson of a building in Tokyo's Kabukicho district that killed 44 people. The death toll also surpassed Tokyo's infamous sarin gas attack on a subway in 1995, which killed 13 people.
The Kyoto attack left fans around the world mourning the loss of life and a studio that claimed to put its employees first and was a major force in the industry.
Founded in 1981, Kyoto Animation – known as KyoAni – has made a name for itself by producing high-quality animation that draws on both the mystical and the mundane.
His popular works include the animated series “Free!”, the manga series “K-On!”, the TV anime adaptation of “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” and “Violet Evergarden,” which Netflix acquired in 2018.
Source: CNN Brasil
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