Yoshihiro Yasuda

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Yoshihiro Yasuda (安田好弘 Yasuda Yoshihiro, born 1948) is a famed and controversial lawyer in Japan who is known for his anti-death penalty activism in Japan. The main reason why he took part in controversial trials is that he thought that the suspects were tried unfairly because of mass media's bashing.^[1]

1 Trial of Shinjuku bus attack
2 Asahara Trial
3 Trial of Homicides in Hikari City
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Trial of Shinjuku bus attack

Yasuda was one of defenders of a Shinjuku bus attacker who killed 6 people in 1980. He wasn't sentenced to death, but he killed himself in 1997.

[edit] Asahara Trial

Yasuda was one of defenders for Shoko Asahara, founder of the religious cult group Aum Shinrikyo accused of various crimes, including the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack. In 1998, during Asahara's trial, Yasuda was arrested and charged with suspicion of the obstruction of the compulsory execution concerning a corporation in which he was an adviser. Some critics pointed out that this accusation was implemented because prosecutors were angry at Yasuda's court tactics to delay the trial as long as possible to avoid the sentence of a highly possible death penalty for Asahara. 1200 lawyers listed as Yasuda's defenders, and Japan Federation of Bar Associations and Amnesty International protested that this accusation was unfair. In 2003 Tokyo District Court acquitted him of all charges, but Tokyo prosecutors office appealed this case to a higher court, and the trial is going on as of May 2007.

[edit] Trial of Homicides in Hikari City

Yasuda is also a chief defender for the 19 year-old boy accused of the murder of a pregnant woman and her 1 year-old girl in Hikari city, Yamaguchi. This case has received much attention because of the circumstances of the crime and the possibility of commuting the death penalty on a minor (age 20 in Japan). In March 2006, Yasuda and his group were absent from the oral argument process without appropriate reason. The Japanese media have considered that their behavior was to delay the trial just in the same way as during the Asahara's trial, and the supreme court ordered him to attend the next argument.