A court has sentenced a 44-year-old man to 16 years in prison for killing a woman by stabbing and slashing her at least 55 times while she was livestreaming on a Tokyo street in March last year.
The Tokyo District Court found Kenichi Takano guilty of murdering 22-year-old Airi Sato in the Takadanobaba district of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison sentence, while the defense had argued for nine years.
Presiding Judge Shunichi Ido said Takano had further degraded Sato’s dignity by picking up her phone, which was still livestreaming, bringing the camera close to her face and saying, “Is she dead?”
But Ido said the court took into account that Takano’s actions were motivated by his belief that Sato had fraudulently induced him to lend her large sums of money.
Takano learned of Sato through a livestreaming app in December 2021 and began lending her money the following year. Over about two months, he lent her around 2.55 million yen, including money he obtained by taking out loans after she asked him for financial help. She repaid only 30,000 yen.
Takano took legal action against Sato and obtained a court order requiring her to repay him, but she said she did not have the money to do so.
Meanwhile, the defense argued that Takano had intended only to disfigure the victim’s face, not kill her, contending that he was on the autism spectrum and had impaired impulse control as a result.
Ido acknowledged that Takano’s condition may have indirectly contributed to his actions but rejected the argument, saying, “Actions may spiral out of control even without such a condition.”