Photo/Illutration Police investigate the scene where a group attack led to a stabbing death outside a Thai restaurant in Yokohama on Nov. 2. (Seiya Hara)

YOKOHAMA--The Yokohama District Court on Sept. 17 handed a suspended sentence to a Thai restaurant worker who fatally stabbed an assailant during a mob attack here last November.

Presiding Judge Takao Sato found the 54-year-old Thai national guilty of murder, but he ruled “the defendant cannot be strongly condemned.”

The court recognized that the suspect acted in self-defense and was trying to protect his friend from a relentless assault.

He was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for five years.

Prosecutors had sought a seven-year prison term.

The facts and circumstances that led to the death of the 42-year-old Japanese man were not disputed. The focus of the case revolved around what would be an appropriate punishment for the suspect.

OUTNUMBERED IN ATTACK

According to the ruling, a group of five men walked by the Thai restaurant on the evening of Nov. 2 last year, and a bicycle parked outside fell over.

A colleague of the defendant who heard the noise went outside of the restaurant and asked the men, “Why did you break the bicycle?”

They shouted at the colleague, “We hate Thai people,” and “Go back to Thailand.”

The colleague was then shoved and repeatedly hit by three of the men. The other two did nothing to stop the assault, the ruling said.

The defendant was cooking inside the restaurant when he heard that his colleague of more than 25 years was being attacked by several men.

Fearing the assailants were armed, he grabbed a boning knife from a cutting board and went outside around 7:40 p.m.

When he realized the men were unarmed, he put the knife down in a nearby flowerpot and tried to intervene.

The group struck him on the forehead and around his head, grabbed his collar and pulled his hair, but the Thai man did not retaliate.

However, when the assailants turned their attention back to his colleague, he grabbed the knife with a 12.8-centimeter blade and stabbed one of the attackers several times in the chest and back.

The court said the stabbing was “excessive self-defense” and that the defendant should have first threatened the attackers with the knife to get them to stop.

But the court also recognized that the victim and his companions bore significant responsibility.

“The incident began when the victim unilaterally struck the defendant’s colleague, and the group continued the assault,” the ruling said.

Prosecutors argued that the defendant could have taken other ways to protect himself and his colleague, such as seeking help at a nearby police station.

However, the court noted that the group’s attack was relentless, and the defendant and his colleague were outnumbered and physically outmatched.

“It would have been difficult for him to calmly choose another way to protect himself and his colleague, who was like a brother to him,” the ruling said.

The court also took into consideration the defendant’s remorse and his compensation to the victim’s family, which included 2 million yen ($14,100) he had saved from his monthly income of 200,000 yen while supporting his family back home.

He also contributed 1 million yen to the man’s family with the help of his friends.

Many Thai nationals attended the trial.

On Sept. 17, they heard the judge explain to the defendant that while he had been sentenced to three years in prison, the five-year suspension meant he would not serve time if he stayed out of trouble.

“Make sure not to do anything wrong in Japan during the five years,” Sato said.

The defendant nodded in acknowledgement.

(This article was written by Miho Kato and Shuhei Nakajima.)

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