A former Hitachi employee who was charged with arson for burning down a warehouse in retaliation after being ‘power-harassed’ by his former employers reportedly caused property damage amounting to up to 20 billion yen.
The judgment hearing was held at the Osaka District Court, where presiding judge Ayako Nakagawa sentenced the man to 12 years in prison, stating, “The danger caused was grave and the damage was unprecedented.”
According to the ruling, on the morning of November 29, 2022, the man, who was 19 years old at the time, set fire to a cardboard stand at a warehouse in Maishima using a lighter to burn about 30,000 square meters of the warehouse’s total of 53,000 square meters. An attempt was also made to set fire to another Hitachi warehouse in Nishiyodogawa.
Chief Justice Nakagawa pointed out that there were 109 employees at the Maishima warehouse and that it was “surprising that there were no casualties.” She also added that the property damage amounted to at least 20 billion yen, “an unprecedented amount of money, and the consequential impact on the many people involved is immeasurable.”
The former Hitachi employee was reportedly subjected to violence and ‘power harassment’ from a senior worker. However, the judge deemed that “most of the victims were unrelated third parties” and “A lot of it was due to selfish thinking.”
Here’s video footage showing the Hitachi warehouse up in flames:
So… this dude set up a whole werehouse, did not kill anyone thankfully but he was sentenced very fast and put 12 years in prison while the dude who burned kyoani is still waiting sentence when he causes irreparable damage to anime?
Well, in the Kyoani case, people died. This would mean he has to be tried for every person that died as well as the arson itself. It’ll take far longer to do all of that vs some guy admitting guilt and moving on.
KyoAni guy has the death sentence looming, which always takes forever in Japan. Could be 30 years before any decision is made.
That’s because there were deaths there and they have to “investigate” the crime more.
So this guy gets convicted of arson and attempted murder in less just over a year, yet the asshole who burned down Kyoto Animation is still on trial. Yeah… makes sense.
Meh he deserves it given he fucked everyone at that place and not just the guy that was harassing him, if he wanted to do better he should’ve knocked out the harasser, tied him up and set him and his house on fire if it posed little risk for other property damage.
Taking it out on everyone because of one guy only makes you one massive asshole.
This has to be one of the all time records for most monetary damage caused by one person, no? Now I’m curious about other ones.
That’s Yen, so not even $150million. Don’t forget about inflation, either.
Only in Japan would you find so considerate a large scale arsonist that no one would get hurt when they started the fire 🔥