Nov 05, 2021 (Japan Times) - Kobe District Court on Thursday found a 30-year-old man not guilty by reason of insanity of killing three people and injuring two others in Kobe in July 2017.
In a lay judge trial, presiding Judge Kentaro Iijima recognized that the defendant was in a state of insanity at the time of the incident due to a mental disorder, acquitting him of charges including murder.
“The suspicion cannot be ruled out that he was under the strong influence of a delusion and other factors, with the normal functioning of his mind hindered,” Iijima said.
Public prosecutors had sought an indefinite prison term, claiming that the defendant had diminished capacity.
The focus of the trial was not on what happened in the incident but on the degree of criminal liability.
In an unusual move, the prosecution conducted a psychiatric examination twice before indicting the defendant, who was not making sense.
Psychiatrists in the two examinations reached different conclusions.
Iijima adopted the conclusion of the doctor in the first examination, who diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.
Iijima judged that the defendant had either truly believed that the people he killed were zombies, or even if that was not the case, he largely believed the delusion.
Therefore, he was unable to stop himself from murdering them, according to the judge. ...continue reading
Source: ANNnewsCH
