On the 5th, a Japanese doctor who committed euthanasia at the request of a patient suffering from an incurable disease in 2019 was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the court.
According to Kyodo News and Asahi Shimbun, on that day, Judge Hiroshi Kawakami of the Kyoto District Court found defendant Yoshikazu Okubo guilty of injecting a drug into a patient suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, causing the patient’s death.
During the trial, Okubo admitted to the act of injecting the drug but claimed innocence, stating that "it was done to fulfill the patient's wish."
In November 2019, Okubo received a euthanasia request from a 51-year-old patient who was virtually paralyzed due to ALS. Subsequently, he injected the patient with a drug in an apartment in Kyoto City, resulting in the patient’s death.
Okubo’s defense argued that if the charge of assisted euthanasia were upheld, patients with incurable diseases who find it difficult to commit suicide would be forced to live unwanted lives, which would violate the constitutional right to self-determination.
However, Judge Kawakami ruled that since Okubo received a fee of 1.3 million yen (approximately 11 million KRW) and was not a specialist in Lou Gehrig’s disease, it was difficult to see his actions as genuinely for the benefit of the victim.
The judge also added that communicating with the patient only through social media (SNS) would have made it difficult to accurately assess the patient’s condition.
Meanwhile, the judge also found Okubo guilty of participating in the killing of a mentally ill father by another doctor, Naoki Yamamoto, in 2011.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
