The Utsunomiya District Court sentenced a 43-year-old man to 17 years in prison Tuesday for killing two brothers by burying them alive in a forest in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture.
The sentence handed down to Kaoru Sakamoto, unemployed and of no known address, was a year less than that demanded by prosecutors.
In his ruling, Presiding Judge Kenichi Hiruma described the crime as "extremely brutal and coldblooded."
According to the ruling, Sakamoto conspired with two others to assault Tsugio Watanabe, 49, and his younger brother Kozo, 47, on Nov. 28, 1998, after the trio had argued with the Watanabe brothers at a bar in Kuroiso.
The ruling said the three took the brothers, who were both cooks in Kuroiso, to a Tochigi forest and forced them into a pit about 2.1 meters deep. The brothers, who were buried naked in the sediment, died of suffocation, the ruling said.
Sakamoto's two accomplices are already serving prison terms -- one for life and the other for 16 years.