According to a court, a Japanese man who was given the death penalty for setting an animation studio on fire and killing 36 people filed an appeal on Friday.
On Thursday, Shinji Aoba, 45, was found guilty of the deadliest crime to have occurred in Japan in decades—the 2019 fire at Kyoto Animation’s studios.
The judge rejected his attorneys’ not-guilty plea, arguing that he suffered from a mental illness.
An official from Kyoto District Court told AFP that his defense team filed an appeal of the decision on Friday.
One of the few affluent nations still using the death penalty is Japan, where there is strong public support for it.
There were 107 inmates on death row as of December.
Among the many young people who perished in the fire in July 2019 was a woman who was 21 years old.
According to survivors, Aoba broke into the building early in the morning, smeared gasoline all over the ground level, lighted it, and said, “drop dead.”
“In the span of a single glance, the victims were enveloped in flames and fumes…” In his decision, presiding judge Keisuke Masuda stated that they “died an agonizing death as the studio instantly turned into a hell.”
The judge went on, “Immolating people is truly cruel and inhumane.”
Even after the fire, weeks passed before Aoba, who had ninety percent of his body burned, regained consciousness and eventually learned to speak.
Prosecutors claimed that Aoba thought the studio, popularly known as KyoAni, had stolen his ideas; the business has refuted this assertion.
Several victims were discovered atop a spiral staircase that led to the roof, suggesting they were overcome as they desperately tried to escape.
More than 30 others were injured, with firefighters calling the incident “unprecedented” and saying that rescuing people trapped inside was “extremely difficult”.
