Takeshi Abe

A lawyer for Abe said Feb. 10 that the Tokyo High Court will probably stop hearing the appeal by prosecutors.

He said a psychiatric examination by a Keio University Hospital doctor commissioned by the court has found that Abe "does not have the ability to discern good from bad."

The Code of Criminal Procedures requires courts to halt a trial if a defendant is mentally incompetent.

The prosecutors are appealing a March 2001 Tokyo District Court ruling that acquitted Abe, 87, of professional negligence resulting in the death from AIDS of a hemophilia patient. The high court deliberations began in November 2002. Abe has not attended any of the sessions due to poor health.

The lower court ruled that the patient's death in 1991 was not foreseeable when Abe administered HIV-tainted blood products to him in 1985 at Teikyo University Hospital.

The Japan Times Weekly: Feb. 21, 2004
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