Man sentenced to 4 years in prison for arson of Korean homes

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Man sentenced to 4 years in prison for arson of Korean homes

A Japanese court sentenced a 23 year-old man to four years in prison for setting fire to empty houses in a community of Korean residents in Kyoto Prefecture a year ago, in a case seen by the residents as a hate crime.

The Kyoto District Court ruling in the trial of Shogo Arimoto follows arguments by prosecutors in previous court hearings saying Arimoto committed the crime out of a one-sided hatred of Koreans. The defendant had admitted to the charges.

In July 2021, Arimoto had been implicated in arson attacks on two buildings associated with South Korea in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan.

In August of last August, the unemployed man started a fire in an unoccupied wooden house in the Utoro district of ethnic Koreans in Kyoto's Uji district, which resulted in the gutting or damage of seven buildings.

The fire also burned down about 40 signs that used to stand on Utoro streets that were due to be put on display at the Utoro Peace Memorial Museum.

Arimoto told the court during the trial that he wanted to hamper the museum's opening by destroying its exhibition items. The museum opened as planned in April of this year.

He said that while he had no direct contact with people with Korean roots, he grew to hate them as a result of news reports about Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

The museum chronicles the history of the Utoro district, which was formed by descendants of wartime Korean laborers who were left abandoned after the construction of an airfield was stopped in 1945 due to Japan's defeat in World War II.

Arimoto's defense had sought a lenient sentence, saying that despite his motives could not be condoned, he had become socially isolated.

Hundreds of thousands of people with Korean background live in Japan. Most of their ancestors came to Japan before and during the war.