Doctor in Japan gets 18 years over consensual killing of ALS patient
Mar 06, 2024
Tokyo [Japan], March 6: A doctor in Japan was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in prison for the consensual killing of a woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 2019 in Kyoto, western Japan.
Hiroshi Kawakami, presiding judge at Kyoto District Court, rejected 45-year-old Yoshikazu Okubo's plea of not guilty. Prosecutors had sought a prison term of 23 years.
Okubo has been charged with conspiring with former doctor Naoki Yamamoto, 46, on Nov. 30, 2019, to administer a lethal dose of a sedative to the ALS patient Yuri Hayashi, 51, at her request and cause her death from acute drug poisoning at her home in the city of Kyoto.
Yamamoto was sentenced to two years and six months in prison last December for conspiring with Okubo for the consensual killing of Hayashi.
Admitting to charges of commissioned murder, Okubo has said that he "did it to fulfill (the patient's) wish."
Okubo's defense team argued that Okubo tried to realize the "peaceful death" chosen by the victim with terminal ALS and that accusing him runs counter to the right to pursue happiness stipulated in the Constitution.
Kawakami said that Okubo was not Hayashi's attending physician and killed her after meeting her for the first time.
Prosecutors had argued that the case "did not fulfill the minimum requirement for euthanasia."
Source: Xinhua
