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 deadly taking pictures of Osho Food Service president Takayuki Ohigashi concluded on the Kyoto District Court, with a verdict scheduled to be handed down on October 16.
Ohigashi, who headed the corporate that operates the Gyoza no Ohsho restaurant chain, was shot useless in 2013. Tanaka was arrested and indicted on homicide and different expenses 9 years after the killing.
During the seven-month trial, prosecutors constructed their case largely on circumstantial proof, together with a cigarette butt discovered on the scene that they mentioned carried Tanaka’s DNA. They argued there was no room to conclude that the cigarette butt had been delivered to the location by a 3rd occasion.
Prosecutors additionally mentioned there was no proof suggesting anybody apart from Tanaka was on the scene, and that the motorized bicycle seen fleeing the realm appeared to have been carrying just one individual. “It is clear that Tanaka committed the crime,” they argued.
The prosecution mentioned Tanaka had refused to truthfully settle for duty and described his delinquent nature as critical earlier than looking for a life sentence.
The sufferer’s household, collaborating within the trial beneath the sufferer participation system, submitted an announcement by prosecutors saying Ohigashi had been a beloved husband, reliable father, form grandfather and the middle of the household. “The defendant has not admitted guilt and has shown no words of remorse,” the assertion mentioned. The household known as for a punishment that may reply the extreme emotions of the bereaved.
The protection countered that the cigarette butt discovered on the scene could have been left by the actual perpetrator to border Tanaka. “Please look at the evidence correctly,” the protection mentioned. “We ask you to consider that the evidence can stand even if Tanaka was not the perpetrator. Tanaka is innocent.”
Tanaka once more denied involvement in a forceful closing assertion, talking 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 mentioned.
Tanaka appeared calm when prosecutors sought life imprisonment, closing his eyes as he listened. He later turned towards the gallery and nodded two or 3 times, earlier than persevering with to pay attention whereas often checking paperwork.
The central difficulty within the case is just not whether or not Ohigashi was killed, however whether or not Tanaka was the one who carried out the taking pictures. Prosecutors known as quite a few witnesses over particulars together with the invention of the cigarette butt, images taken on the scene and later experiments on how the cigarette had burned, arguing that the proof collectively proves Tanaka’s guilt.
The case, nevertheless, lacks direct proof comparable to eyewitness testimony or safety digital camera footage capturing the second of the taking pictures. The court docket’s evaluation of the credibility and weight of the circumstantial proof might be carefully watched.
Source: KTV NEWS