Yakuza death sentence won’t stop organized crime

TOKYO — Satoru Nomura, the 74-year-old head of Japan’s infamous Kudo-kai crime syndicate, made news last summer when he became the first active yakuza boss to receive a death sentence.

Handed down by a district court in Fukuoka, the sentence was punishment for his involvement in a murder and three other violent assaults. 

Despite the lack of direct evidence linking him to the murders, the court concluded that Nomura, as the head of an organization known for its brutality, had supervisory responsibility in the killing committed by his underlings as well as the three other incidents.

Most media analysts and yakuza experts had dismissed any chance that Nomura would be sentenced to hang, believing that there was enough reasonable doubt about who ordered the killing.