Photo/Illutration Yoshikazu Okubo (Captured from his blog)

KYOTO--A doctor was sentenced to 18 years in prison on March 5 over the deaths of two people, including the killing of an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient who had asked him to end her life.

The Kyoto District Court convicted Yoshikazu Okubo, 45, of murdering the woman, 51, by administering a fatal dose of a drug through a gastric feeding tube at her request in her apartment in Kyoto in November 2019.

Okubo had admitted to killing the patient but explained that he did so to “fulfill the woman’s wishes.”

His defense team argued that if Okubo had not killed the woman, she would have been forced to continue living “an unwanted life.”

“The act of killing is justifiable, and he should be acquitted,” the defense team said.

Prosecutors, who sought a 23-year prison term for Okubo, said the woman wanted to die, but she also harbored a wish to live.

They argued that Okubo failed to conduct a detailed examination of the woman before deciding to kill her. They said his act was “far from a ‘sincere euthanasia’ that fulfills the patient’s wishes” and was not justifiable.

Presiding Judge Hiroshi Kawakami said Okubo did not meet the essential obligations for medical personnel concerning patients who sincerely want to end their lives, including undertaking all possible treatments and providing thorough explanations.

Kawakami added that Okubo was not the woman’s primary doctor, and that he interacted with her through social media without ever meeting or seeing her in person.

Okubo was also convicted of conspiring with an acquaintance, former doctor Naoki Yamamoto, 46, to murder Yamamoto’s father.

The two were accused of killing the father, 77, at his apartment in Tokyo in March 2011 after he was discharged from a long-term hospital stay in Nagano Prefecture.

Okubo had pleaded not guilty, saying, “I did not do it.”

Prosecutors said Okubo held the belief that elderly people who are exploiting medical expenses and patients with incurable diseases who wish to die should be actively targeted for death.

The presiding judge said Okubo developed the plan to kill Yamamoto’s father in talks with Yamamoto.  

Yamamoto was tried separately in the two cases and pleaded not guilty.

However, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the murder of his father and given a two-and-a-half-year sentence over the death of the woman.

He has appealed both rulings.

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