The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday found a Tokyo couple guilty of failing to provide their 5-year-old son with adequate food, handing down suspended two-year prison terms.
According to the ruling, Keiichi Sudo, 30, and his 24-year-old wife, Michiko, were negligent in providing food to the boy and kept him confined in a room following their marriage in 1998.
The boy, Keiichi's stepson, weighed only 8 kg -- equivalent to a 9-month-old baby -- when he was taken into custody by a child consultation office in Musashimurayama, western Tokyo, in June last year. Presiding Judge Toshikazu Obuchi at the Tokyo District Court said, "While the defendants' acts were inhumane, they regretted them."