Prosecutors on Wednesday sought the death penalty for a woman accused of murdering four people with poisoned curry at a community festival here in 1998.

At the end of a marathon session at the Wakayama District Court that started at 10 a.m. and ended shortly after 6 p.m., prosecutors demanded capital punishment for former insurance saleswoman Masumi Hayashi, 40.

Throughout the trial, Hayashi has pleaded not guilty to charges of killing four people and injuring 63 others by putting arsenic in curry that was later served at a summer festival on July 25, 1998, in the city's Sonobe district.