Kyoto Animation Arsonist Who Killed 36, Injured 32, Sentenced To Death In Japan

A 45-year-old man has been sentenced to death for the 2019 arson attack on Japanese animation studio Kyoto Animation, in which 36 people were killed and 32 more were injured. According to broadcaster NHK, the number of deaths is the largest for a Japanese criminal trial in more than three decades.

Kyoto District Court judge Masuda Keisuke said that Shinji Aoba (45) was neither mentally incompetent nor in a diminished mental state at the time of the attack. He said that Aoba’s hesitation to commit the crime and efforts to avoid detection beforehand indicated he was in control of his actions and that the attack was committed of his own free will based on a grudge against the company.

More than 400 people had queued in snowy conditions outside the court for a chance at one of 23 seats available to hear the sentence, including several survivors and family members of the victims.

On July 18, 2019, Aoba broke into Kyoto Animation’s Studio 1 and spread gasoline on the building’s entrance and several employees before lighting it and shouting, “Go to hell!” Aoba was still inside the building when the fire began and sustained life-threatening burns.

Aoba pleaded guilty to the attack last September, but his lawyers asked for leniency in sentencing. They argued their client was suffering from delusions at the time of the attack and should not be held fully accountable for his actions. In December, Aoba apologized for the attack in court for the first time, saying that, in a way, he felt the death penalty would be an appropriate punishment for his actions.

From the beginning, prosecutors have dismissed claims that Aoba was mentally unfit at the time of the attack and that Aoba had convinced himself that a director at the studio had stolen his ideas. They also suggested the Kyoto Animation fire wasn’t Aoba’s first plan for an attack and that he previously went to Omiya Station in his home prefecture with six knives, hoping to commit mass murder before he eventually scrapped that idea.

When he was originally indicted in 2020, the prosecutors conducted a psychiatric evaluation, which found him competent to stand trial and concluded that he could be held criminally responsible for his actions.