A 32-year-old Japanese man on death row over the mass murder of 19 people with mental disabilities living at a care home is seeking a retrial, Yokohama District Court officials said Friday.
The death sentence for Satoshi Uematsu, a former caretaker at the Tsukui Yamayuri En care home in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, who also injured 26 people in the 2016 rampage, was finalized in March 2020.
The Yokohama District Court will decide whether to hold a retrial after examining the petition, which was filed on April 1.
Uematsu admitted to the charge in the trial, but his lawyers argued that he should not be held responsible for his actions due to mental incompetence. Prosecutors had demanded capital punishment.
He was sentenced to death in the ruling on March 16, 2020, with the presiding judge recognizing his criminal responsibility, saying, "The grave consequences were incomparable to other incidents, with 19 lives being taken."
Although his defense team filed an appeal, his death sentence was finalized later in the month after Uematsu withdrew it before the deadline for his appeal to a high court.
Uematsu said after the verdict that he would drop the appeal since it would be "wrong" to continue the trial at higher courts.
According to the ruling, Uematsu fatally stabbed 19 residents and injured 24 others at the facility in the early hours of July 26, 2016.
He is also accused of binding five employees to handrails in a corridor, causing injury to two of them.