A district court in Tokyo has sentenced a 41-year-old man to life in prison as requested for his alleged involvement in a series of robberies by a group with a mastermind who used the name “Luffy.”
The Tokyo District Court handed down the ruling on Monday against Fujita Toshiya, a senior member of the group that was based in the Philippines.
Fujita faced charges including robbery resulting in death and robbery causing injury in seven criminal cases. Those involve a case in which a 90-year-old woman was killed in her home in Komae City, Tokyo, three years ago.
Fujita allegedly gave orders to perpetrators from an immigration facility in the Philippines.
Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment, while the defense requested a fixed-term sentence.
The defense said Fujita was merely coerced into assisting with the robberies by other defendants who were also detained at the immigration facility. The defense said his role amounted only to aiding and abetting.
The presiding judge said at Monday’s ruling that Fujita acted voluntarily along with one of the other defendants, engaged in robberies and played an indispensable role for the benefit of their group.
The judge pointed out that the case can be regarded as a precursor to a new type of crime — wide-area serial robberies, which are thoroughly anonymous and remotely directed.
The judge said the defendant issued instructions to the perpetrators from overseas without getting his own hands dirty, treated human life lightly and escalated crimes without any sense of reality or resistance stemming from inflicting brutal violence on actual human beings.
The judge added that the anxiety and impact inflicted on society as a whole are immense and his criminal responsibility is serious.
The defendant’s lawyer says they are considering whether to appeal.
Trial dates for two other defendants indicted for the robbery cases, including Imamura Kiyoto, who allegedly played a central role in the fraud group using the alias “Luffy,” have not yet been set.
AloJapan.com