OSAKA — The Osaka High Court on Wednesday sentenced a 28-year-old man to life imprisonment for the May 1997 abduction and murder of a teenage girl from Nara Prefecture, dismissing an 18-year prison term handed down by a lower court.
Masato Okazaki received the sentence, which was in line with prosecutors' demand for life imprisonment, for kidnapping and murdering his acquaintance, Michiyo Urakubo, 13, a second-year junior high school student, in Tsukigase in the prefecture on May 4, 1997.
Presiding Judge Motoyasu Kawakami rejected Okazaki's claim that discrimination against him by the local community had been the motive for the crime, and said the court doubts that he is sincerely repentant.