The arson attack in a revered Kyoto animation studio killed 36 people and injured dozens more.

A Japanese man has been sentenced to death for an arson attack at a Kyoto animation studio in 2019 which killed 36 people and injured dozens more.

The incident, one of Japan’s deadliest in recent decades, killed mostly young artists and shocked the anime world.

Shinji Aoba, 45, pleaded guilty to the attack but his lawyers had sought a lighter sentence on grounds of “mental incompetence”.

Judges rejected this however, ruling that Aoba knew what he was doing.

“I have determined that the defendant was not mentally insane or weak at the time of the crime,” Chief Judge Masuda said on Thursday at Kyoto District Court.

  • stown@sedd.itEnglish
    1041·
    8 months ago

    Huh, I swear I was always told that America was the only modern Democratic country to still use the death sentence. It’s a “fact” that people bring up whenever there is a high-profile death-row case, like right now.

    • aleq@lemmy.worldEnglish
      39·
      8 months ago

      Anything happens anywhere in the world.

      The US: “Oh, this is about me!”

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      195·
      8 months ago

      To be fair, it’s quite generous to call a political system based on a 1700s document “modern”…

      • Scrongle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        That’s a peculiar statement, considering the U.S. is essentially the most recent major nation (and one of very few) to be formed and grown, about as far from the intense pressures of previously established cultural or governmental influences (both from within, or from surrounding territories) as you can get, without leaving the planet.

        …If that’s not considered relatively modern when compared to the rest of the world, what is?

        • yesman@lemmy.worldEnglish
          01·
          8 months ago

          That’s a particular statement, considering the US has the oldest democratic constitution in the world.