Experts were divided over Monday's family court decision to send a 16-year-old girl, who last summer killed her classmate in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, to a medical reformatory instead of sending her back to prosecutors so that she could be criminally indicted and sent to prison.
According to the Nagasaki Family Court's decision, the girl strangled her female classmate, mutilated her body and then stole several thousand yen in cash on July 26 last year. She had earlier attempted to kill her father by hitting him over the head with a metal baseball bat in March of last year.
Prosecutors had demanded that the family court return the girl to them, so that she could be criminally indicted. The bereaved family had also called for severe punishment.