Ex-Drugmaker Worker Pleads Not Guilty to Killing with Methanol

Tokyo, Sept. 2 (Jiji Press)--A former employee of a major Japanese drugmaker Monday pleaded not guilty to charges of killing his wife in 2022 by poisoning her with methanol.

According to the indictment and other information, the former employee of Daiichi Sankyo Co., Keisuke Yoshida, poisoned his wife, Yoko, by giving her methanol at their home in Tokyo between Jan. 14 and 15, 2022.

Yoshida, 42, flatly denied the allegations in the first hearing of a lay-judge trial at Tokyo District Court, saying, "Everything is wrong."

"I never had any intent to kill my wife or gave her methanol," he said. His lawyer argued that the wife, 40, died because she took methanol herself.

The prosecution said in its opening statement that the defendant used methanol in experiments as a researcher at Daiichi Sankyo at the time.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]