Enlarge image
The animation studio Kyoto Animation after the arson attack
Photo: Takayuki Hamai / AP
Four and a half years after the arson attack on the Japanese animation studio Kyoto Animation that killed 36 people, the perpetrator was sentenced to death.
The court in Kyoto thus complied with the prosecutor's request, as Japanese media reported on Thursday.
The court had previously rejected the defense's argument that the defendant, Shinji Aoba, was not guilty because of psychological problems.
According to Japanese media reports, the court explained that the now 45-year-old was neither “mentally ill” at the time of the crime nor did he suffer from “reduced mental abilities.”
Petrol spilled on the ground floor and set on fire
At the start of the trial last September, Aoba confessed to setting the fire in the studio in Kyoto in July 2019.
At that time he broke into the animation studio, spilled gasoline on the ground floor and set it on fire.
Many of the studio's young employees were among those killed in the devastating fire.
Aoba had accused Kyoto Animation, known to fans as KyoAni, of stealing his ideas.
The studio rejected this.
Aoba himself suffered severe burns in the fire, with around 95 percent of his skin burned.
He spent ten months in the hospital before being arrested in May 2020.
He appeared in court in a wheelchair.
The attack was the deadliest crime in Japan in decades and caused horror across the country.
Kyoto Animation is known for a number of animated television films such as “Munto,” “Lucky Star,” and “K-ON!”
Japan is famous worldwide for its cartoons.
The ruins were demolished after the fire.
The company is now based a few streets away.
It took the company a long time to get production going again.
The employees who died in the fire, including director Yasuhiro Takemoto and character designer Shoko Ikeda, could not be replaced, employees report.
kub/AFP/AP