18-Year Sentence over Fatal Road Rage in Japan to Be Finalized

Tokyo, Jan. 20 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Supreme Court has upheld lower court rulings sentencing a 34-year-old man to 18 years in prison for a high-profile fatal expressway road rage incident near Tokyo in 2017, it was learned Tuesday. The top court’s five-member First Petty Bench, presided over by Justice Ryosuke Yasunami, on Monday unanimously rejected the defense’s appeal against the sentence for Kazuho Ishibashi, who was found guilty of dangerous driving resulting in death and injury. According to the lower court verdicts, Ishibashi’s vehicle repeatedly blocked the path of a vehicle driven by 45-year-old Yoshihisa Hagiyama on the Tomei Expressway in Oi, Kanagawa Prefecture, on June 5, 2017, forcing it to stop on a passing lane, causing a truck to crash into Hagiyama’s vehicle and leaving him and his wife dead and their two daughters injured. Ishibashi conducted the act after Hagiyama criticized his parking at a rest area on the expressway. The first ruling on the case by Yokohama District Court in December 2018 found Ishibashi guilty of dangerous driving resulting in death and injury and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. But Tokyo High Court sent the case back to the lower court in December 2019, citing procedural issues. The Yokohama court handed down a fresh 18-year prison sentence in June 2022, which was upheld by the high court in February 2024. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]