Prosecutors sought a three-year sentence Monday for a doctor who gave a lethal injection to a terminally ill cancer patient - the first time a doctor in Japan has faced criminal charges for euthanasia.
The case before the Yokohama District Court is expected to rekindle a Japanese legal debate on euthanasia after decades of silence.Dr. Masahito Tokunaga, 38, was accused of "behavior that betrayed the nation's faith in doctors" by injecting a fatal dose of potassium chloride into a 58-year-old cancer patient at Tokai University Hospital in April, 1991, Japanese media reported.
Prosecutors said the doctor did not obtain the patient's permission. Tokunaga has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder.
In its opening arguments, the prosecution said Tokunaga, who was dismissed by the university, "committed an act of murder unconnected to euthanasia that strayed far beyond (the bounds) of medical ethics," according to Japanese press accounts of opening trial arguments.
Tokunaga's lawyers argued the doctor acted to make the patient's passing easier after repeated requests by the patient's family.