An Ishikawa man was sentenced Tuesday to a suspended 18-month prison term for leaving his 19-month-old daughter in a car last summer while he read comics in a cafe, resulting in her death from heatstroke.
Presiding Judge Yutaka Takahashi of the Kanazawa District Court suspended the sentence on Ikuo Kumamoto, 29, a civil engineer of Matto, Ishikawa Prefecture, for three years.
Prosecutors had demanded an 18-month prison term.
Kumamoto was arrested on suspicion of negligence resulting in the death of his daughter, Haruka, after he left her in the car for about two hours on a hot day.
He left the sleeping infant alone on the passenger seat in the parking lot of a Kanazawa cafe at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 17.
He found the girl unconscious at around 3:30 p.m. and rushed her to a hospital, but she was pronounced dead around 6 p.m.
According to the Kanazawa Local Meteorological Observatory, the temperature in the city hit a high of 33.5 at 2:40 p.m. that day.
The car's engine was turned off. The sunroof was open, but the other windows were closed, raising the temperature inside the vehicle to as high as 57, according to police investigations.