The families of two victims of convicted killer Toshihiko Hasegawa have sent a written request to the Justice Ministry asking that his sentence be commuted from death to life in prison, according to legal sources.
The request sent May 23 to the warden of the Nagoya Detention House, where Hasegawa is on death row, marks the second time the two families have petitioned the ministry to commute the 49-year-old killer's sentence.
The ministry did not act on their 1997 request. Since 1955, only three death row inmates have had their sentences commuted, the ministry said.
Hasegawa himself has also petitioned the Justice Ministry to commute his sentence. He was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murder of three men between 1979 and 1983.