The Yokohama District Court sentenced two men to 13 years and 15 years in prison Friday in a high-profile case involving the 2023 killing of a 46-year-old man whose body was found in a suitcase dumped in the Tama River in Kawasaki.
Presiding Judge Takao Sato sentenced Masahiro Nishitaka, 54, to 13 years in prison and Shuhei Iwaki, 40, to 15 years’ imprisonment.
Sato described the case as “highly malicious,” noting that the defendants had “pooled their knowledge to plan and prepare the methods of killing and disposal.”
However, he also acknowledged that the incident stemmed from a conflict between the victim, Tadayuki Hara, and Nishitaka’s 34-year-old daughter, Mai.
The judge said that while the two men participated in the crime, “it could not be said that they played a leading role.”
Both men had admitted to the murder charges leveled against them.
Prosecutors had sought 16 years for Masahiro Nishitaka and 18 years for Iwaki.
Defense lawyers countered in final arguments that Mai Nishitaka, who was dating Iwaki at the time of the killing, had orchestrated the crime and manipulated the two men into carrying it out.
According to the indictment, the two men conspired to drug Hara with a drink laced with sleeping pills at an apartment in Tokyo’s Ota Ward in December 2023. After incapacitating him, they strangled him and placed his body in a suitcase, which they discarded at Tama River after transporting it there by car.
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