A 21-year-old man was sentenced Monday to life in prison for killing a woman and injuring her daughter in conspiracy with three others in Yamagata Prefecture in 2001.
The Yamagata District Court had once rejected the indictment against the man, who is Chinese, because prosecutors had mistakenly dealt with him as an adult because he held a fake passport showing an older date of birth. The district court determined he was 19 after obtaining documents from the Chinese government.
The prosecutors indicted him again in August after he turned 20.
The four broke into a home in the town of Haguro, planning to rob it. The defendant bound the daughter with adhesive tape, and another man fatally stabbed the mother, Kayoko Sato, 51.
The other three have been tried and sentenced to prison terms. A Chinese man, 26, who stabbed Sato, is serving a life sentence. A 52-year-old Japanese mobster has appealed his life sentence.
The fourth man, a 20-year-old Chinese, received 15 years in prison; his lawyers and prosecutors have both appealed his sentence.