Takashi Ono, father of one of the victims who was injured when patients at a care home were attacked in 2016, speaks during a press conference in Yokohama on Monday, after the court sentenced Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the facility, to death. Photo: AFP
A Japanese court on Monday sentenced a man to death for the 2016 murder of 19 disabled people at a care home, one of the country’s worst mass killings.
Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the facility, never disputed his involvement in the grisly stabbing rampage, but his lawyers entered a plea of not guilty, arguing the 30-year-old was suffering a “mental disorder” linked to his use of marijuana.
Chief judge Kiyoshi Aonuma dismissed that argument and ruled Uematsu deserved no leniency over the horrifying attack happened in 2016, which shocked the country.
“The lives of 19 people were taken away. This is profoundly grave,” he told the court.
Uematsu planned the murders and had “an extreme intention to kill,” the judge said.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty, which in Japan is implemented by hanging, arguing Uematsu was capable of taking responsibility for what they said was an “inhumane” attack at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en center in Sagamihara town, just outside Tokyo.
Uematsu’s behavior in court, including apparently trying to put something in his mouth, disrupted proceedings at the first hearing in January, with the judge calling a recess and then resuming without him.
But he was impassive on Monday as the verdict was announced, looking straight ahead at the judge during the sentence hearing.
He wore a black suit with his hair in a long ponytail down to his waist, and was flanked by six uniformed court officers wearing surgical masks.
Uematsu, who faced six charges including murder, reportedly said before the trial that he would not appeal any verdict, though he argued he did not deserve the death penalty.
He has reportedly said he wanted to eradicate all disabled people in the horrifying attack that also left 26 people wounded.
He turned himself in to police after the assault, carrying bloodied knives, and it later emerged he had left his job at the home just months earlier and been forcibly hospitalized after telling colleagues he intended to kill disabled people at the center.
