A district court on Thursday referred to the family court a case involving a 16-year-old boy charged with murdering his parents in the city of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, last year.
Yokohama District Court Judge Takahira Yoshii said that educative and protective measures are appropriate for the boy.
"The incident wouldn't have happened if he had not been placed in an inappropriate environment by his parents," the presiding judge said.
Yoshii said that the boy "regrets" what he did, and that he needs to receive special education.
Public prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years for the boy.
The judge found the boy guilty of killing his 52-year-old father and 50-year-old mother at their home near Tokyo on Feb. 10, 2024, by stabbing them multiple times in their necks with a knife. He was in his first year of high school at the time.
The boy had admitted to murdering his father while claiming that he killed his mother because she had asked him to. The defense argued that this amounted to a case of assisted suicide.
Yoshii noted that the mother had gone out to the balcony to seek help, which contradicted the defense's claim.
The defense pointed out that the boy was a victim of severe maltreatment and had become desperate after enduring many years of physical and mental abuse by his parents.
The prosecution said the boy, after murdering his father, waited for his mother to return home to kill her due to his strong homicidal intention.
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