THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
November 5, 2021 at 15:54 JST
The residential district in Kobe's Kita Ward where Kanami Takeshima killed three people and injured two others in July 2017 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
KOBE--A man who killed three people and seriously injured two others in 2017 was cleared of all charges by reason of insanity on Nov. 4, a ruling that elicited angry shouts in the courtroom.
Kanami Takeshima, 30, killed his grandparents and a woman living in the Kita Ward neighborhood here in the July 2017 rampage, while also seriously injuring his mother and another woman in the neighborhood.
He had been charged with murder and attempted murder. The only issue in the case was whether Takeshima was mentally competent to stand trial.
Prosecutors and the defense agreed on the manner in which Takeshima killed and maimed his victims as well as that he held the delusion that he would be able to marry a female acquaintance as long as he killed a “philosophical zombie.”
The Kobe District Court relied on the testimony of a psychiatrist who interviewed Takeshima on 11 occasions in its ruling. The psychiatrist concluded that Takeshima never faced the moral dilemma of doing something wrong by killing someone because he did not consider the philosophical zombie to be an actual human.
The court ruled that reasonable doubt existed because Takeshima suffered from insanity and was thus not punishable under the law.
But Presiding Judge Kentaro Iijima also told the defendant that he would never be able to undo the terrible things he did and urged him to seek proper medical treatment.
Not everyone was satisfied with the ruling.
Shouts broke out in the courtroom when the not guilty verdict was read.
One man who said he was a bereaved relative of one of the victims told reporters, “I am so shocked I don’t have the words to describe how I feel.”
One woman left the courtroom shouting, “Why wasn’t he given the death sentence for killing people? I have never heard of a case like this.”
The bereaved children of the neighborhood woman who was killed issued a statement saying they were deeply disappointed by the verdict.
(Shuya Iwamoto contributed to this article.)
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