KYOTO - Prosecutors sought life imprisonment for Yukio Tanaka, a senior member of a gang affiliated with the Kudo-kai crime syndicate, as his trial over the 2013 fatal shooting of Osho Food Service president Takayuki Ohigashi concluded at the Kyoto District Court, with a verdict scheduled to be handed down on October 16.
Ohigashi, who headed the company that operates the Gyoza no Ohsho restaurant chain, was shot dead in 2013. Tanaka was arrested and indicted on murder and other charges nine years after the killing.
During the seven-month trial, prosecutors built their case largely on circumstantial evidence, including a cigarette butt found at the scene that they said carried Tanaka's DNA. They argued there was no room to conclude that the cigarette butt had been brought to the site by a third party.
Prosecutors also said there was no evidence suggesting anyone other than Tanaka was at the scene, and that the motorized bicycle seen fleeing the area appeared to have been carrying only one person. "It is clear that Tanaka committed the crime," they argued.
The prosecution said Tanaka had refused to honestly accept responsibility and described his antisocial nature as serious before seeking a life sentence.
The victim's family, participating in the trial under the victim participation system, submitted a statement through prosecutors saying Ohigashi had been a beloved husband, dependable father, kind grandfather and the center of the family. "The defendant has not admitted guilt and has shown no words of remorse," the statement said. The family called for a punishment that would answer the severe feelings of the bereaved.
The defense countered that the cigarette butt found at the scene may have been left by the real perpetrator to frame Tanaka. "Please look at the evidence correctly," the defense said. "We ask you to consider that the evidence can stand even if Tanaka was not the perpetrator. Tanaka is innocent."
Tanaka again denied involvement in a forceful final statement, speaking partly in a Kyushu dialect. "I want to go around grabbing each person by the shoulders and tell them, 'I am not the culprit. Excuse me. I really am not the culprit,'" he said.
Tanaka appeared calm when prosecutors sought life imprisonment, closing his eyes as he listened. He later turned toward the gallery and nodded two or three times, before continuing to listen while occasionally checking documents.
The central issue in the case is not whether Ohigashi was killed, but whether Tanaka was the person who carried out the shooting. Prosecutors called numerous witnesses over details including the discovery of the cigarette butt, photographs taken at the scene and later experiments on how the cigarette had burned, arguing that the evidence collectively proves Tanaka's guilt.
The case, however, lacks direct evidence such as eyewitness testimony or security camera footage capturing the moment of the shooting. The court's assessment of the credibility and weight of the circumstantial evidence will be closely watched.
Source: KTV NEWS
