Withdrawal of Appeal against Death Sentence Found Valid in KyoAni Case

Osaka, March 17 (Jiji Press)–Osaka High Court ruled Tuesday that the defendant’s withdrawal of his appeal against the death sentence in the Kyoto Animation Co., or KyoAni, arson-murder case is valid. Shinji Aoba, 47, was sentenced to death by Kyoto District Court in January 2024 and appealed the sentence the following month. However, he retracted the appeal in January 2025. His lawyers then filed with the high court to contest the validity of his decision, claiming that a death sentence should not be made final on impulse. In Tuesday’s ruling, Presiding Judge Hisashi Ito said that Aoba clearly understood the meaning of his decision, and that the impact of his delusional disorder on the decision was hardly seen. The judge added that it is “not unreasonable” for Aoba to believe that withdrawing the appeal was better than being deemed delusional by a higher court and being executed. According to the Kyoto court’s ruling, Aoba set fire to a KyoAni studio in the western Japan city of Kyoto in July 2019, leaving 36 of the 70 people in the studio at the time dead and 32 others injured. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]