Yakuza leader in Japan sentenced to death
The Yakuza are a group of criminal organizations that have existed in Japan since the 17th century. The group consists of several well-known gangs to this day. They run a covert underground business and are known to be ruthless.
Criminalization of members of these criminal gangs began to be carried out harshly after 1995 through the anti-extortion law. But shocking news emerged on August 24, 2021, where a court in Fukuoka had sentenced Nomura Satoru to death, the leader of the Kudo-kai, a Yakuza criminal gang based in Kitakyushu in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Satoru Nomura is 74 years old, the leader of the powerful Kudokai gang in southwestern Japan.
The Fukuoka District Court on Tuesday (24/8) sentenced Nomura Satoru to the death penalty for masterminding violent attacks against members of the public.
The decision arises there must be a lack of direct evidence linking Nomura Satoru and the cases in question. Nomura Satoru has denied being connected to the cases.
"I ask for a fair decision. You will regret it for the rest of your life," Nomura Satoru told the judge after his sentence was set, as quoted by the Nishinippon Shimbun.
Nomura Satoru was found guilty of ordering the fatal 1998 shooting of a former fishing cooperative boss.
It was also behind a 2014 attack on a relative of a murder victim and a 2013 knife attack on a nurse at a clinic where Nomura sought treatment.
The 2012 shooting of a former police officer who investigated the Kudo-kai is also considered Nomura Satoru's responsibility. The official survived with serious injuries to his waist and legs.
Prosecutors argued that each of the four cases was a coordinated attack by Kudokai, with Nomura as the mastermind and Fumio Tanoue as his deputy. Tanoue himself was sentenced to life in prison.
The court also demanded a fine of 20 million yen for Nomura and Tanoue.
The Yakuza grew out of the chaos of postwar Japan and became a billion-dollar criminal organization, involved in everything from drugs and prostitution to extortion.
The yakuza mafia has long been tolerated in Japan as a necessary crime to ensure order on the streets. But in recent decades, anti-gang regulations have become more stringent, with waning social tolerance and a weak economy having seen yakuza membership continue to decline.
Unlike the Italian mafia or Chinese triads, the yakuza have long occupied a gray area in Japanese society. They are not illegal, and each group has its own headquarters that is visible to the police.