The Fukuoka Family Court decided Tuesday to send a 15-year-old boy to a care institution instead of a penal reformatory for stabbing his older brother to death in June.
The court determined that the boy took the action because he had been bullied by his 17-year-old brother.
"The incident was (a reaction to) the bullying the brother inflicted on the boy," presiding Judge Kyoko Yoshida said.
Yoshida added there is thus little likelihood of the boy committing a similar crime and there is no need to send him to a reformatory. She also said the boy needs psychiatric care.
According to prosecutors, the stabbing took place June 23 after the older brother tried to slash the boy with a saw at the family's apartment in the city of Fukuoka.
The boy stabbed the brother with a kitchen knife, and when the brother fled to a neighbor's dwelling, the boy followed him there and stabbed him fatally and threw the body into a bathtub.
Yoshida said the boy had an intent to kill, but given his history of being bullied there was reason for him to think he could not survive unless his brother died.