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Man gets 20 years in prison for taking woman hostage at internet cafe

31 Comments

The Saitama District Court has handed a 20-year prison sentence to an unemployed man who holed himself up in an internet cafe, taking a female employee hostage last June.

According to the court ruling on Wednesday, Kazutaka Hayashi, who was unemployed, lured the employee into a private room at the cafe in Omiya Ward at around 2:25 p.m. on June 17, 2021, Kyodo News reported. He claimed that the television in the room wasn’t working.

Hayashi took the woman hostage with a utility knife while another employee called police. Hayashi told the police through an intercom to stay away or he would kill the woman and then himself.

The standoff lasted for 32 hours until midnight on June 18. Police entered the room after Hayashi fell asleep.

The hostage sustained injuries requiring two weeks to heal.

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31 Comments
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Twenty years. Sounds about right.

-7 ( +7 / -14 )

Yeah the sentences passed out here boggle the mind honestly. This guy gets 20 years and nobody was killed or seriously injured yet I see lots of stories about parent neglect or abuse that leads to a child's death, super sad depressing stories and yet those monsters get out in like 7-8 years, WTH???

10 ( +21 / -11 )

A legal system that instigates hostage taking itself, gives a seemingly OTT sentence to a fellow hostage taker.

-5 ( +6 / -11 )

Twenty years. Sounds about right.

wow even that is high for Japan standard, murderers get far less in Japan

6 ( +15 / -9 )

Just recently a man abused and killed his own child get only 9 years jail. But this incident... nobody is killed get 20 years. Look like woman are more protected than children.

0 ( +10 / -10 )

Sometimes to protect the victims the true nature of the crime are not released. A lot can happen in 32 hours.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

And yet, kill your kids and you get maybe 2-5 years. Another bell jar sentence!

2 ( +9 / -7 )

Serious crime but 20 years seems excessive.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Perhaps there's more to this twisted tale than meets the eye

5 ( +5 / -0 )

LOL Perhaps the police gave him a very good ramen meal at his request and little did he know it was laced with chemicals to make you drowsy and fall asleep.

"Police entered the room after Hayashi fell asleep".

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

20 years? It's a terrible thing he did, but for example, that thug that punched a kid who asked him to stop smoking on the train, only got 2 years.

Oh, come on - holding somebody hostage at knife-point is a way more serious offense than, what? Common assault on an adolescent? 2 years for that would be considered pretty hefty in most countries. Where I'm from, it would probably have been community service and some compensation to the victim - almost certainly would not have landed jail-time unless it was a serial offender, or other aggregating factors such as a hate crime.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

That’s a surprisingly long sentence. We regularly see stories of parents (or boyfriends of single mothers) abusing, neglecting, and murdering children, and they only get a few years of prison time.

Did this guy have a criminal record that added to his sentence?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Maledae2:

Just recently a man abused and killed his own child get only 9 years jail. But this incident... nobody is killed get 20 years. Look like woman are more protected than children

Exactly my thought! In case of that poor 9 year old girl, the abuse went on for years and years. And ended with murder. And that gets only half of this incident? Something is out of kilter with the legal system here.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Japan is not precedence based law, nor is there an overarching authority that says 'this punishment is to light/heavy on this case, as compared to that case, so we need to change it'.

Rather, each case is determined on its own merits, and punished based on that. There is no comparison with other cases, and no requirement to go on precedent.

That's how Japanese law works.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

20 years looks like crazy to me. More care should be taken in mental health of people and less to Corona histeria

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Japanese news sources have much more details regarding this. To cut the long story short, it involved multiple rapes during the ordeal.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Yet, people can neglect and abuse their child resulting in death and get far less... Ridiculous. They're just rolling dice back behind the bench.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

20 years looks like crazy to me. More care should be taken in mental health of people and less to Corona histeria

Japan's legal system has very little understanding of the concept of mental health.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

I totally agree that this is a clear case where the mans road to rehabilitation should be focused on mental health. Locking him up like an animal for 20 years is completely missing the point. Is our society still this primitive? In his case this judgement is clearly a miscarriage of justice. Very sad. For anyone who is new to Japan, please be sure to know your situation over here. Of course, I’m assuming you are all “good people” but be sure to avoid getting tangled in legal issues in Japan because the system is not designed to give you a fair trial. It’s one of the major and continuing flaws with the legal system over here. Just be careful and stay out of any kind of trouble.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

My experience working in criminal law in Australia is this....Depends on the Judge sentencing the offender.

In the absence of Statutory Imprisonment provisions {fixed periods etc }, the Judge has much discretion.

I had a client who served 18 months only for shooting his cousin {female, said her current boyfriend was better in bed ...all parties intoxicated}

And yes to Anton above....all cops here are friendly on the street....its what happens after arrest that sees all rights to "due process " ignored.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The only real surprise is that the first sentence didn't read as follows:

The Saitama District Court has handed a 20-year prison sentence, suspended for five years.

For some reason courts often like to suspend sentences,

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japanese news sources have much more details regarding this. To cut the long story short, it involved multiple rapes during the ordeal.

Yes. That's true but media seems protecting the victim. This scum has multiple criminal records, rape, housebreaking, robbery, inflicting injury, all targeted women. as a matter of fact, he is under another investigation for the inflicting injury on another women just 4 days before this incident。

To cut the long story short, he deserves it

1 ( +1 / -0 )

He got 20 years because on top of taking the poor girl hostage, he raped her repeatedly over a period of 32 hours. That’s what the story meant by “injuries”. I blame the police. They could have stormed in anytime but they waited over 24 hours just to wait for him to fall asleep? Sentence actually seems to lenient

1 ( +1 / -0 )

He looked happy when he got arrested, therefore I assume he got what he wanted and now a warm bed for next 20 years at taxpayers expense of 10 million a year...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Could not find any media source for that but if correct his sentence should have been longer.

There are many. some of those repeats the question of judges and the answers of this pig at the court in exact manner by media which attended the trial

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There are many. some of those repeats the question of judges and the answers of this pig at the court in exact manner by media which attended the trial

I mean this psycho replied to the judge it was by mutual agreement.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Twenty years is about right. The woman taken hostage will live with it forever.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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