KOBE -- A 16-year-old boy and his parents Thursday were ordered by the Kobe District Court to pay about 100 million yen in damages to the parents of a child the boy beheaded in 1997 in a crime that stunned the nation.
"The boy, 14 years old at the time of the murder, was fully capable of recognizing his responsibility for the crime, and his parents, as guardians, were responsible for his supervision," said Judge Nobuatsu Morimoto as he handed down the decision.
The teen, whose name must be withheld in accordance with the Juvenile Law, strangled the 11-year-old boy in Kobe's Suma Ward in May that year. He then beheaded him and left the head in front of the main gate of a local school, the Kobe Family Court ruling says.