Prosecutors on Wednesday demanded that a former health official be given a three-year prison term for failing to stop the use of HIV-tainted blood products in the mid-1980s.
Akihito Matsumura, 59, is accused of professional negligence leading to the AIDS deaths of a hemophiliac and a liver patient treated with unheated blood products while he was chief of a Health and Welfare Ministry division in charge of drugs with biological origins.
In demanding the sentence during their closing arguments, the prosecutors told the Tokyo District Court that Matsumura had sole authority to take measures that would have prevented the deaths but neglected his duty.