By SHOGO MITSUZUMI/ Staff Writer
October 17, 2023 at 18:16 JST
Naoki Yamamoto (Captured from his Twitter account)
KYOTO—Prosecutors on Oct. 17 sought a six-year prison term for a former doctor accused of murdering an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient by administering a drug at her request.
During a hearing at the Kyoto District Court, prosecutors described the case as “unprecedented” because the defendant misused medical knowledge and committed the crime as if he was playing some kind of game.
The suspect, Naoki Yamamoto, 46, visited the 51-year-old patient’s apartment in Kyoto in November 2019 and injected her with the drug through a gastrostomy feeding tube, the prosecutors said.
Yoshikazu Okubo, 45, a doctor and Yamamoto’s acquaintance, was a conspirator in the crime, according to the indictment.
Okubo will be tried separately. His trial is expected to begin as early as January.
Yamamoto has denied the allegations, saying, “I was in the woman’s apartment, but I neither conspired (with Okubo) nor committed a crime.”
He told the court that he watched Okubo inject a liquid through a tube but was told to look the other way.
Yamamoto also said he had not been informed of a murder plot beforehand.
His lawyers argued that Okubo was the lone killer and that their client is innocent.
They added that if Yamamoto is held criminally responsible for the woman’s death, it should only be for “aiding and abetting” Okubo’s crime.
According to the prosecutors’ opening statement, the patient posted on Twitter, now X, since around April 2018 that she hoped for a mercy killing, and Okubo sent her a message saying that he could assist in euthanasia after October 2019.
Prosecutors said Yamamoto was aware of Okubo’s interest in euthanasia.
Okubo prepared a document, titled “manual for murder under the cover of medical care,” and shared an electronic version of the document with Yamamoto.
Yamamoto and Okubo have also been indicted on a charge of forging English medical certificates for a patient in her 20s who hoped for a mercy killing abroad.
Yamamoto has denied the allegations.
His medical license was revoked after it was found following his indictment that he had not qualified for the national examination for medical practitioners.
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