Prosecutors in Kyoto have made a request to the Kyoto District Court that the trial of a gang leader arrested over the murder of the president of major fast-food chain Gyoza no Ohsho (King of Gyoza) in Kyoto in 2013, be held without lay judges.
Yukio Tanaka, a 57-year-old member of a group linked with yakuza crime syndicate Kudo-kai, was arrested in October 2022 on suspicion of killing Takayuki Ohigashi, 72, then head of Ohsho Food Service Corp, who was shot dead in a parking lot in front of the company's head office in Kyoto on Dec 19, 2013.
Prosecutors said that lay judges may be subject to intimidation and threats from gang members, NHK reported.
Pre-trial preparation procedures are currently being finalized.
Ohigashi, who was nicknamed the "Gyoza King," was shot four times, in his chest and abdomen, by a .25-caliber automatic weapon when he got out of his car in the parking lot in Kyoto's Yamashina Ward. Several hundred thousand yen in cash was found left in his car.
Police also detected gunshot residue from the handle of a motorcycle stolen two months before the crime, believed to have been used as a get-away. A motor scooter, which was stolen around the same time, was also thought to be used for the same purpose. The vehicles were recovered near the crime scene in the spring of 2014.
Tanaka was arrested after a police investigation revealed that traces of DNA from a cigarette butt found near the crime scene matched that of the suspect. The cigarette was the same brand as those Tanaka usually smoked at the time, investigative sources said.
Tanaka is currently serving time in prison on a 10-year sentence handed down in November 2020, when he was convicted of shooting at a company car belonging to Obayashi Corp, a major general contractor, carrying three people in Fukuoka, in 2008.
In March 2016, a third-party committee that looked into links between Ohsho Food Service and antisocial organizations said that the company had conducted inappropriate business transactions with the head of a corporate group before Ohigashi took the helm in 2000.
Ohsho Food Service, listed on the top-tier Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, operates a Chinese dumpling restaurant chain under the Gyoza no Ohsho brand in Japan. The popular fast-food chain has over 700 stores nationwide since it opened its first in 1967.
© Japan Today/Kyodo
8 Comments
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gogogo
He's a murderer because they found a cigarette with DNA in it near the crime? Talk about circumstantial evidence.
Yubaru
The murder occurred in Dec 2013, the guy was arrested in October 2022, based partially on evidence that was collected, lord only knows when, in 2014.
These bikes must have been in a pristine environment
sakurasuki
System it's fine until it becoming obstacle for 99% conviction rate, what is the favorable one. Justice hostage system.
So anyone who smoke and left cigarettes' butts around that area during that time will be subject for a crime conviction? Most important where's the murder weapon?
James
No butt they would be a suspect if their DNA turned up in the system.
Since Tanaka is already behind bars for another crime involving guns, you can bet his DNA is in the system.
And I am sure it is not the only evidence against him they probably have CCTV footage of him using the stolen scooter.
justasking
One more reason to not smoke.
Mike_Oxlong
Lay judges might be subject to logic and reason. Banish them!
virusrex
The prosecutors are implicitly recognizing that the system is insufficient to guarantee the safety of the lay judges, that is a huge criticism that should not be ignored as natural or inevitable.