The death sentence handed to a 23-year-old man convicted of killing two sisters in Osaka in 2005 has been finalized after he withdrew his appeal, his lawyers said Friday.
Yukio Yamaji was accused of stabbing to death Asuka Uehara, 27, and her sister Chihiro, 19, in their apartment in Osaka, stealing 5,000 yen and torching the premises on Nov. 17, 2005.
Two years earlier, in October 2003, he had been released from a reformatory where he had been detained after killing his mother, 50, with a baseball bat in the city of Yamaguchi in July 2000.
Although Yamaji's lawyers appealed the death sentence handed down by the Osaka District Court last December, the defendant was reluctant to pursue leniency and the appeal was withdrawn, they said.