Defense Challenges Competence in Probation Officer Murder

Otsu, Shiga Pref., Feb. 17 (Jiji Press)--A 36-year-old Japanese man on Tuesday admitted to murdering a “hogoshi” private-sector volunteer probation officer in charge of him in 2024, while the defense for him argued that he is not mentally competent to bear responsibility for the crime.

In the first hearing of his lay-judge trial at Otsu District Court in Shiga Prefecture, western Japan, the defendant, Kohei Iitsuka, said: “It’s true. I did it (the murder), following the voice of my guardian deity.”

The defense claimed that the defendant was not mentally competent or was in a state of diminished capacity, saying that he was “under the control of the voice inside his head at the time.”

The court is scheduled to hand down a sentence on March 2.

According to the indictment, Iitsuka killed the probation officer, Hiroshi Shinjo, 60, by stabbing and slashing him in the neck and chest multiple times with a knife and an ax during an interview conducted at Shinjo’s house in Otsu, the capital of Shiga, on the night of May 24, 2024. Shinjo died from hemorrhagic shock.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]