THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
September 9, 2022 at 14:51 JST
The Imadegawa campus of Doshisha University in Kyoto city (Yoshiki Yashiro)
KYOTO--Prefectural police here have arrested four members of an elite American football club at Doshisha University on suspicion of sexually assaulting a barely conscious drunken woman.
The students, all in their fourth year at the university in Kyoto city, are accused of committing quasi-forced sexual intercourse, which is defined as a sexual crime committed by taking advantage of the victim’s unconscious state or inability to resist.
The four suspects are Yuki Katai, 21, and Ryo Makino, 21, who both live in Kyoto city, along with Yugo Yamada, 21, and Ken Hamada, 22, who reside in Kyotanabe, Kyoto Prefecture.
According to prefectural police, the suspects drank alcohol with a female university student, 20, at a bar in a downtown in Kyoto city in the early hours of May 21.
Investigators believe the four men, who had never met the woman before, approached the victim at the bar and provided her with cocktails and other alcoholic drinks until she became intoxicated.
The men then took the woman, who was inebriated and nearly unconscious, to Katai’s home and sexually assaulted her there between about 4:35 a.m. to 5:25 a.m., police said.
According to investigative sources, the group video-recorded the sexual assault on a smartphone.
Prefectural police identified the four suspects with the help of security camera footage after the woman reported the incident.
The university said it takes the matter seriously and that there will be repercussions.
“As we regard (the incident) as a serious situation, we will take strict measures, including disciplinary actions against the students concerned and the (American football) club to which they belong,” Tomoko Ueki, the president of the university, said in a statement.
The American football club was formed at Doshisha University in 1940.
It belongs to Division 1 of the Kansai Collegiate American Football League and ranked sixth in the division last year.
It had 121 members as of Sept. 8.
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