An eight-year sentence for a woman convicted of playing a role in the fatal abuse of her two children was increased Tuesday to 12 years by the Hiroshima High Court.
Presiding Judge Toshikazu Obuchi overturned an earlier ruling by the Hiroshima District Court that Mitsuko Segawa, 30, did not intend to kill her children.
The district court found Segawa guilty of colluding with her 32-year-old boyfriend, Kenichi Takao, in the death of her 6-year-old son, Yoshiki, and 4-year-old daughter, Shoko.
Segawa and Takao were found guilty of suffocating the boy by putting him in a plastic bag and sealing it in September 1999.