Satoru Nomura, the 74-year-old head of the “Kudo-kai” crime syndicate in southwestern Japan, denied the allegations of ordering violent assaults.
A Japanese court has sentenced a Yakuza mafia leader to death after ordering the murder and attacking three other citizens.
Satoru Nomura, the 74-year-old head of the “Kudo-kai” crime syndicate in southwestern Japan, denied the allegations he had thought of in the violent assaults on members of the public.
The Fukuoka district court confirmed he had sentenced Nomura to death on Tuesday, while Japanese media said the verdict came despite a lack of evidence linking him directly to the crimes.
“I asked for a fair decision … You will regret it for the rest of your life,” Nomura told the judge after his sentencing, according to the Nishinippon Shimbun newspaper.
The yakuza mafia was long tolerated in Japan as a necessary evil to ensure order in the streets and get things done quickly, no matter how dubious they may be.
But in recent decades, more anti-patrol regulations, declining social tolerance, and a weak economy have led to a steady decline in yakuza members.
Nomura was found guilty of ordering the fatal execution of a former head of a fishing cooperative who carried out port construction projects in 1998, according to major media reports.
He was also behind a 2014 attack on a relative of the murder victim and a 2013 knife attack on a nurse at a clinic where Nomura was seeking treatment, the court reported.
The shooting of a former police officer who had investigated the Kudo-kai in 2012 was also considered the responsibility of Nomura.
The official survived with serious injuries to his waist and legs, media reported.
According to reports, prosecutors argued that each of the four incidents was a coordinated attack by the Kudo-kai, with Nomura as the mastermind and his deputy, Fumio Tanoue, who approved the acts through the structure of the chain. band command.
Tanoue was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, the court said. Tanoue denied the allegations.
According to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Tanoue also told the judge, “You are horrible, Mr. Adachi,” when he left the courtroom.
The court also demanded a fine of 20 million yen ($ 182,200) from Nomura and Tanoue.
The yakuza went from post-war Japan chaos to multimillion-dollar criminal organizations, involved in everything from drugs and prostitution to snowshoes and white-collar crimes.
Unlike the Italian mafia or the Chinese triads, the yakuza have long occupied a gray area of Japanese society: they are not illegal and each group has its own headquarters in sight of the police.
With more than 100 inmates on death row, Japan is one of the few developed countries to maintain the death penalty.
Public support for the death penalty remains high despite international criticism, including from advocacy groups.