The Nagasaki District Court on Friday sentenced a 28-year-old man to death for the 2011 murders of two relatives of a woman he had been stalking, in a lay judge trial.

The three professional and six citizen judges imposed the death penalty on Gota Tsutsui, a resident of Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, after finding him guilty of fatally stabbing the woman's mother, Mitsuko Yamashita, 56, and grandmother, Hisae Yamashita, 77, at their home in Saikai, Nagasaki Prefecture, on Dec. 16, 2011. The woman's name was not disclosed.

The defendant "claimed the lives of two people who had never been held responsible for any mistake," presiding Judge Akira Shigetomi said.