The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence handed to a 62-year-old man convicted of two robbery-murders in the 1990s.
The top court's No. 1 Petty Bench rejected an appeal by Masami Toyoda from Shizuoka Prefecture against his sentence for murdering and robbing Kazuko Nakano, 44, in Shizuoka Prefecture in August 1996 and Hide Shinoda, 62, in Aichi Prefecture in September 1997.
"The murders were carefully plotted and committed due to greed. There is no room for leniency," presiding Judge Kazuko Yokoo said.
The defendant withdrew about 10 million yen from Nakano's bank account after murdering her by injecting her with a large amount of stimulant drugs.
He killed Shinoda with a pistol to evade paying her back 4.2 million yen in loans and stole about 60,000 yen in cash from her.