Prosecutors demanded on Tuesday a five-year prison term for a 53-year-old man charged with killing his violent 14-year-old son as he slept by hitting him with a metal baseball bat and choking him with a rope.
Before the Tokyo District Court, prosecutors contended that Takeki Kagawa, a retired public official, had intended to kill his son and called his act atrocious. However, they said he had been suffering mental and physical anguish in coping with his son, who had been violent against the rest of the family. The boy, who had an older sister, was not named because he was a minor.
The defense is scheduled to put forward its final argument on Feb. 20, when the court is expected to end hearings on the case. According to prosecutors, Kagawa struck his son about the head several times with the bat while the youth was sleeping in the family's condominium in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, in November 1996. He then choked his son with a rope.