Trio who
murdered four as minors sent to gallows
(JDPIC Note: The trio
were not "sent to the gallows" but simply sentenced to
death. The Japan Times apologized for the
error)
The Japan Times: Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005
NAGOYA (Kyodo) The Nagoya High Court on Friday sentenced
three men to death for murdering four people in 1994,
crimes that occurred when the defendants were still minors.
This is the first time that more than one defendant in a
case involving minors has been sentenced to death in a
Japanese court.
The high court rejected a July 2001 ruling by the Nagoya
District Court that sentenced one to death and handed life
terms to the other two.
The three were 18 to 19 years old when they killed four
males -- aged 19 to 26 -- over an 11-day period in Osaka,
Aichi and Gifu prefectures.
In appealing the lower court ruling, prosecutors sought the
death sentence for all three defendants, who are now 29 to
30 years old, while their defense lawyers sought
commutation.
Since the defendants committed the murders before they were
20, their names are being withheld.
The four victims were murdered in three separate cases.
In the first, the defendants strangled Masahide Hayashi,
26, after forcibly taking him to a building in Osaka on
Sept. 28, according to the high court ruling.
They dumped his body in a mountainous area of Kochi
Prefecture.
In the second case, the defendants beat up Sawato Okada,
22, a supposed friend of the killers, in Aichi Prefecture
on Oct. 7 and left him to die.
After killing Okada, the defendants confined three men in a
car with the intent of stealing their money.
The defendants battered two of them -- Katsutoshi Watanabe,
20, and Masafumi Ezaki, 19 -- with steel pipes on a river
bank in Gifu Prefecture. The third man was released in
Osaka more than seven hours after the other two were beaten
to death.
The defense team disputed that the defendants had intended
to murder the victims and colluded in the murders, but the
judge rejected this argument.
The Japan Times: Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005
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